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COUNTRY PLEASURES 



Come live with me, and be my love; 

And we will all the pleasures prove 
That hills and valleys, dales and fields, 
Woods, or steepy mountain yields 

C. Marlowe : The Passionate Shepherd 



COUNTRY PLEASURES 



THE CHRONICLE OF A YEAR 



CHIEFLY IN A GARDEN 



BY 



GEORGE MILNER 




BOSTON 
ROBERTS BROTHERS 

1881 



)2^ 



aift 

W. L. Shoemake? 
J $ '06 



PREFACE. 



The Country Notes presented to the reader in 
this volume were written at the several places and 
upon the successive dates which are superscribed. 
They record, therefore, not afterthoughts, but imme- 
diate impressions and such moods of mind, whether 
transient or permanent, as were actually induced by 
the scenes portrayed. As will be observed, the 
greater part of them have reference to a garden 
situated in an ancient parish on the south-eastern side 
of Lancashire. Although this parish or township 
is already threatened on one of its borders by the 
fast-approaching outworks of a great city, it retains 
some nooks of sylvan greenness, and a few places 
where rural quiet and comparative seclusion still 
remain. Like that parish in which Chaucer's good 



vi Preface. 

parson laboured, it might even yet be fitly described 
as ' wide,' with ' houses fer asondur.' 

Of the garden itself it may be said that it pos- 
sesses no especial advantages either of soil or of 
climate ; but it is large and old — extending over 
several acres and having considerable variety in the 
shape of wood and water, orchard and lawn, dingle 
and meadow. The reader who cares to know anything 
of the adjacent country — which is not usually thought 
to be attractive — will find it described in some of the 
later Notes, and particularly in those headed ' The 
Glen,' ' The dough/ and ' The Moss.' It would have 
been better, perhaps, if these could have appeared in 
the earlier pages ; but, having been written at special 
seasons, the arrangement of the book required that 
they should remain where they now are. 

To make the repetition of places and dates un- 
necessary, it may be explained here that the year 
referred to throughout is that of 1 8j8 ; and that where 
no locality is given, the writer's own homestead and 
garden at Moston are to be inferred. 

A word of explanation, and, in some sense, of 
apology, may be added with reference to the nume- 



Preface. vii 

rous quotations in this book. The reader is asked to 
regard them not as excrescences, nor even as ex- 
traneous gems selected for the enrichment of the text, 
but as something correlative with, and indeed essential 
to, the idea and plan of that which has been attempted. 
It has been the writer's habit to associate certain 
passages of literature with certain scenes of natural 
beauty, or with particular phases of country life, in 
such an intimate way that the pleasure given by the 
one was in no small degree dependent upon the 
existence and recognition of the other ; and as the 
writer's chief object has been to convey to the reader 
as completely as possible the delight which he himself 
felt, it became not only desirable, but necessary, to 
insert such passages as were already connected in his 
own mind with the things described. It remains only 
to say that the division of the work into months and 
weeks will facilitate its use as a Year-book of rural 
seasons ; and that it is hoped it will, at least, show 
how far it is possible, even in the neighbourhood of a 
large town, to study the common aspects of Nature, 
and to interest the circle of a family in the simple 



viii Preface. 

pleasures and home-bred observances of a country- 
life. 

In order to avoid encumbering the text, the Quo- 
tation-references, and a few explanatory notes, have 
been placed at the end of the volume. 



CONTENTS. 



JANUARY. 

PAGK 

I. Spring Days in January 2 

II. Returning Winter .4 

III. A Fall of Snow .6 

FEBRUARY. 

IV. The White Fog 10 

V. A Frosty Morning . 13 

VI. Snowdrops 16 

VII. The Crocus 20 

MARCH. 

VIIL Spring-time in the Lake Country . . . 25 

IX. Shrovetide 32 

X. Daffodils 36 

XI. Spring-time on the Coast . . . . .43 



Contents. 



APRIL. 

PAGE 

XII. Mid-Lent and All Fools' 48 

XIII. The Lesser Celandine 53 

XIV. The Daisy 59 

XV. On the Moorland 65 

MAY. 

XVI. May-day -72 

XVII. The History of a Throstle's Nest . . .77 

XVIII. The White-thorn 83 

XIX. Bees and Blossoms 88 

XX. Still Days : the Chronicle of a Hedge-war- 
bler's Nest 93 

JUNE. 
XXI. More about Birds: Meadow-Pipit and Black- 
bird 99 

XXII. Whitsuntide : the Skylark 106 

XXIII. Summer in the Midlands no 

XXIV. Midsummer Nights and Days . . . . 117 

JULY. 
XXV. Tropical Summer : In the Hayfield . . 123 

XXVI. The Foxglove Garden 128 

XXVII. The Summer Woods 133 

XXVIII. Hot Summer again : a Gossip about Birds . 139 
XXIX. The Old-fashioned Garden .... 145 



Contents. xi 



AUGUST. 

PAGE 

XXX. On the Coast of Arran : Wild Flowers and 

the First Aspect 153 

XXXI. Corrie and Glen-Sannox . . . . 159 
XXXII. By the Sea . . 167 

XXXIII. On the Mountain . . . . . 175 

SEPTEMBER. 

XXXIV. Reminiscences : Ben-Ghoil and Loch Ranza. 183 
XXXV. The Beginning of Autumn .... 194 

XXXVI. The Wild West Wind 200 

XXXVII. Autumn on the Welsh Hills . . . .205 

OCTOBER. 

XXXVIII. Autumn on the Welsh Hills {continued) . . 213 

XXXIX. Echoes of the Spring 221 

XL. Aspects of Autumn in the Garden and the 

Wood 226 

XLI. The Indian Summer 232 

XLH. The Glen 238 

NOVEMBER. 

XLIII. The First Week of Winter : Red-letter 

Days 245 

XLIV. A Snow-storm 252 

XLV. The Clough ....... 257 

XLVI. November Fog 266 



xii Contents. 



PAGE 



DECEMBER and JANUARY. 

XLVII. The Moss 272 

XLVIII. Winter in the Lake Country . . . . 280 

XLIX. Winter in the Lake Country {continued) . 286 

L. An Old-fashioned Winter 298 

LI. Christmas Eve 306 

LII. Conclusion : The Old Year ended, and the 

New Year begun 314 



An Index of Quotations 325 

Miscellaneous Notes 331 

Index 335 



COUNTRY PLEASURES. 



JANUARY. 

Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her ; 'tis her privilege, 
Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
From joy to joy : for she can so inform 
The mind that is within us, so impress 
With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
The dreary intercourse of daily life, 
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
Is full of blessings. — Wordsworth, Tintern Abbey. 

'Tis born with all : the love of Nature's works — 

It is a flame that dies not even there, 

Where nothing feeds it. Neither business, crowds, 

Nor habits of luxurious city-life, 

Whatever else they smother of true worth 

In human bosoms, quench it or abate. 

Cowper, The Winter Evening. 



Country Pleasures. 



I.— SPRING DAYS IN JANUARY. 

January 17. 

It almost seems as if we were to have no winter 
this year, or only winter in its mildest form. And yet 
one cannot help having forebodings of what may still 
come upon us. I imagine that just as we usually 
have our short Indian summer, coming in the late 
autumn, so we have our ante-spring — our premonitory 
awakening. However, we had better take what we 
have got with thankfulness, and ward off the approach 
of pessimism by averaging the joys and sorrows of 
existence. To-day has had all the characteristics of 
opening spring — no clear sunlight, indeed, but a hazy 
tone of blue diffused over everything — seen in the sky 
and hanging about the moist ground. Those lines of 
Wordsworth, addressed to his sister in 1798, have 
been running in my head ever since morning : 

No joyless forms shall regulate 

Our living calendar : 
We from to-day, my Friend, will date 

The opening of the year. 

One moment now may give us more 

Than years of toiling reason : 
Our minds shall drink at every pore 

The spirit of the season. 

Some silent laws our hearts will make, 

Which they shall long obey : 
We for the year to come may take 

Our temper from to-day. 



January. 



And from the blessed power that rolls 

About, below, above, 
We'll frame the measure of our souls : 

They shall be tuned to love. 

Would that we might preserve such a temper and 
frame such a measure for the whole year long ! I 
have just come in from the garden ; and, though it is 
near midnight, the air is as balmy as if it were May ; 
and in the grey moonlight the whole landscape is soft- 
ened down to an exquisite harmony. 

For the last few days the signs of spring have been 

very manifest. The Christmas roses are not gone yet, 

though they have been with us for more than six 

weeks ; but they are beginning to look forlorn, and 

are drooping on the beds. Perhaps the most joyous 

thing we have is a yellow-jasmine. It is trained on a 

brick wall, in a warm corner facing the south-west, and 

is in full bloom. It is leafless, and has little or no 

fragrance, but the bright colour is enough. And then 

there are already three clumps of primroses in flower. 

They are on a sloping bank, looking north-west, but 

sheltered by a thorn-hedge some eight or ten feet 

i 
high, which in a little while will be full of newly-made 

birds' nests. 

If we want to enjoy the approach of spring we 

must look for leaves as well as flowers. There are 

B2 



Country Pleasures. 



already plenty of dry twigs tipped with that reddish 
brown which means bursting life ; but the pleasantest 
thing to me is the foxglove foliage, the inner leaves of 
which are now of a bright green. It needs but little 
imagination to see, rising months hence from this vivid 
centre, the ' foxglove spire ' — grandest of our English 
wild flowers. 



II.— RETURNING WINTER. 

January 23. 

Since I last wrote we have had continuance of the 
mild spring weather until yesternight, when it be- 
came cold and boisterous. About eleven o'clock the 
sky was a fine sight. The gibbous moon, rising late, 
seemed to be scudding through the deeps, now beam- 
ing out of a clear space, and anon plunging into a 
gulf of clouds. The wind was then in the west ; 
during the night it must have got into the north, for 
this morning there were little wreaths of snow in re- 
mote corners of the garden. Still the advent of life 
and verdure proceeds. The scrubby elder-bushes are, 
as usual, most forward, their new leaves being already 
uncurling ; and I notice that the crocus and snowdrop 
are pushing their spear- like points of foliage through 
the soil. The yellow-jasmine in the warm corner has 



January. 



not lost a petal yet. Those who love the sun and live 
in places where there is not too much of his light 
should cultivate yellow flowers, especially such as grow 
in masses like the jasmine and the laburnum. They 
give a feeling of sunshine on cloudy days. 

By the way I should mention that our garden is 
rich in corners and alleys. This would follow upon 
saying that it is large and old-fashioned. ■ The ancient 
pleasure-ground and the ancient house are always full 
of shady retreats and embayed recesses in which men 
meditate, and use devotion, and commune with friends, 
and, indeed, take all their highest pleasures. ' For the 
Side Grounds,' says Lord Bacon, thinking of some such 
places, ' you are to fill them with Varietie of alleys. 
Private, to give a full Shade ; Some of them, where- 
soever the Sun be. You are to frame some of them 
likewise for Shelter, that when the Wind blows Sharpe, 
you may walke, as in a Gallery.' In the particular 
corner of which I have been speaking, where we always 
get out of the sharp wind, there are, besides the 
yellow-jasmine, a few rose-bushes ; a shapely thorn 
with a seat under it made of a large root sawn in 
two ; and a little Dutch-garden in which the tulips 
and crocuses will first be seen. 

In one of Mr. Ruskin's ' Oxford Lectures ' there is 
a noticeable passage about the dove, where he says 



6 Country Pleasures. 

that the plumage of that bird when watched carefully 
in the sunshine is f the most exquisite, in the modesty 
of its light, and in the myriad mingling of its hue, of 
all plumage.' I know how wonderfully beautiful these 
feathers are when in motion, for I often watch a 
flock of doves as they are feeding on the lawn ; but 
I am not sure Mr. Ruskin would have spoken so abso- 
lutely if he had remembered the plumage of the pea- 
cock's neck. We have one of these birds, which comes 
and stands by an open window and eats from my hand, 
so that I have abundant opportunity of observing his 
glorious colour. To me its splendid glancing and 
vanishing of green and blue, yellow and purple, seem 
finer than that of the dove ; and yet it is also ' modest,' 
for the homely brown feathers, over which the 
coloured ones are thrown like a delicate scarf, play 
through, and tone down, what might otherwise seem 
comparatively coarse and gaudy. 



III.— A FALL OF SNOW. 

January 30. 

Winter, as I expected he would, has been re- 
asserting himself. Our primroses have been covered 
up with snow, and we have turned from thoughts of 
spring to those of the time — 



JamLary. 



When birds die 
In the deep forests ; and the fishes lie 
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes 
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes 
A wrinkled clod, as hard as brick ; and when 
Among their children, comfortable men 
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold. 

The snow was grand while it lasted — a dry, dusty, 
frozen snow. The children were hilarious. Hardly 
anything produces such keen enjoyment, such 'tipsy 
jollity ' in a healthy and unspoiled child — or, for that 
matter, in a child-like man — as the sight of new-fallen 
snow. Our little sledge was got out, and ran bravely 
along the paths, making the powdered snow fly before 
it in clouds : there was even rough skating to be had 
on the beaten track in the lane, and before evening 
there was a snow-man on the lawn — at least the 
thing, by courtesy, was called a ' man,' but the sculp- 
ture was certainly pre-artistic. I could find his head, 
and perhaps his nose, but his legs were no more 
discoverable than those of bold Widdrington at the 
battle of Chevy Chase. 

The week has been notable for its fine sunrisings 
and its clear nights. This is the time of year to 
watch the sun come up : in summer we are too late 
abed to enjoy his appearing. It was very delightful 
to see the first rosy colour flush the snow-furrows 



8 Country Pleasures. 

while the moon was fading away in the south-west 
the sky being entirely clear under the influence of a 
whistling north wind. No other wind gives the shrill 
whistle that the north does. The south sighs, the 
south-west sobs, the north-west blusters, but the true 
north seems to blow a thin, keen note through a high- 
pitched reed. 

Under the influence of frost, the birds, as usual, 
become bolder and more persistive. They flutter 
about the windows, and perch on the rhododendrons, 
waiting for their accustomed crumb-breakfast. The 
robin takes his seat on a pear-tree branch which has 
become loosened from the wall : this coign of vantage 
enables him to look into the room. We are more 
glad, I think, of the chance of seeing him even than 
he is of seeing us. It is at night, however, that the 
feeling of winter is most strong ; and the dumbness of 
it is the first thing that strikes you : there is much 
to see, but nothing to hear. The watercourses are 
frozen ; the birds are all hidden — who knows where ? 
— and the winds are still ; but how beautiful are the 
white leaning roofs of our old homestead, and the red 
glimmer in the windows of the neighbouring farm, seen 
across a long stretch of snow ; and how marvellously 
the stars seem to dance among the black branches of 
the trees ! 



January. 



Last night, I imagine, the cold was more intense 
than at any time this season, if one may judge from 
the frost-tracery on the windows. Would it not be 
possible to get a ' nature-printed ' photograph of this 
mimic representation of tropical fern and palm- 
jungle ? As all hope of flowers, out of doors, is gone 
for the present, we naturally turn to the greenhouse 
for the beauty of colour. There we get, just now, 
bright pots of the Chinese primrose ; camellias, white, 
damask, and pink ; the deutzia, covered thickly with 
blossoms; and the delicate, crimson-tipped cyclamen. 



IO Country Pleasures. 



FEBRUARY. 

When the shining sunne laugheth once, 
You deemen the Spring is come attonce ; 
Tho gynne you, fond flyes ! the cold to scorne, 
And, crowing in pypes made of greene come, 
You thinken to be Lords of the yeare ; 
But eft, when you count you freed from feare, 
Comes the breme Winter with chamfred browes, 
Full of wrinckles and frostie furrowes, 
Drerily shooting his stormy darte, 
Which cruddles the blood and pricks the harte 

Spenser, The Shepheards Calender, Februaiit. 



IV.— THE WHITE FOG. 

February 6. 

The thermometer just too high for freezing, and 
yet low enough to starve the blood ; the spectral 
trees glimmering through a white fog ; your horizon 
only some twenty yards distant ; — under such con- 
ditions the Earth is not a cheerful place to live in. 
And, to make it worse, this state of things came after 
a clear and beautiful day. In the morning the sky 
was barred with luminous clouds, the ice was over an 



February. 1 1 



inch thick on the pond, and at night we had a whole 
hemisphere of stars — a rare thing with us — not a rag 
of cloud or suspicion of smoke to be detected by any 
scrutiny. At eight o'clock Venus had just gone down 
in the west, brilliant enough, I should think, to cast a 
shadow, certainly irradiating perceptibly a consider- 
able arc of sky, and making all the stars in her 
vicinage look pale ; the jewelled belt of Orion was 
sparkling in the south ; the Seven Sisters lambent 
overhead ; and the tail of the Bear pointing down- 
ward to north-east. At such a time a curious feeling 
comes up in the mind which it is difficult to express 
— a feeling that we are not merely isolated dwellers 
upon the Earth ; but interested spectators of, and, 
indeed, participators in, the larger and grander system 
by which we are surrounded. 

It seemed as if at last we were really going to 
have that long, long frost which somebody had 
prophesied. The antiquarian member of our circle 
went over the well-worn story of the frozen Thames, 
the fair, and the roasted ox, and the rest of it ; and 
our boys were planning a fire in the winter-house, and 
a grand bout of torch-light skating on the pond. But 
'the best-laid schemes gang aft a-gley,' a milder 
counsel prevailed among the winds, the south chose 



1 2 Country Pleasures. 

to blow, and down upon us came both the fog and a 

partial thaw. 

Is anything worse than fog in winter ? Dante, 

with a proper insight, makes the Inferno foggy — 

To no great distance could our sight 
Through the thick fog and darken'd air discern. 

and again — 

Now let thy visual nerve direction take 
Along that ancient foam, and where abide 
The densest fogs. 

Of course, there is a fog in the Ancient Mariner. 
Coleridge could not have missed such an opportunity ; 
and, mark, it is a white fog, the most ghastly kind, 
and that from which we have been suffering : — 

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 

It perched for vespers nine ; 
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, 

Glimmered the white Moon-shine. 

Tennyson, too, has made good use of this same white 

fog. In the sad opening of Guinevere we have it : — 

The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face, 
Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still ; 

and in the Passing of Arthur \ when that last battle of 

the west was going on, and when friend and foe were 

all as shadows, we are told that — 

A deathwhite mist slept over land and sea : 
Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 
Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 
With formless fear. 



February, 13 



This is bad enough ; but there are always compensa- 
tions. In the cheerless twilight I was walking in our 
little wood, when all at once a robin started from a 
bough in front of me, and, as he will do even in the 
dead of winter, piped forth his flute solo. The chill 
had not been drawn down into his blood. But it was 
soon over : the short song and the last flicker of day- 
light both died away together. 



V.— A FROSTY MORNING. 

February 13. 

There are few appearances of winter more pleasant 
than the typical 'frosty morning.' I have not seen 
Turner's picture of that name ; but the spectacle of 
which I am thinking could not have been painted even 
by him ; nor by any could it be adequately described. 
We had such a morning yesterday. The sky was not 
clouded, but it was covered with a haze which was 
itself so full of light that it might be said to have had 
the quality of brightness. The sun rose only two or 
three fields away : he was a near neighbour ; his light 
streamed through the hedges ; he seemed to be set in 
the middle of the landscape, and to be turning every- 
thing to his own substance and colour. A hardy white- 
rose bush, conspicuous for its forward leafage, glittered 



14 Country Pleasures. 

all over with pearl-like drops of frozen moisture, which 

were mingled curiously with the little green buds. 

Very beautiful also were the long shadows of the 

trees stretching across the hoar-frosted lawn. My own 

shadow — 

Spindling into longitude immense, 
In spite of gravity, and sage remark 
That I myself was but a fleeting shade, 
Provoked me to a smile. With eye askance 
I saw the muscular proportioned limb 
Transformed to a lean shank. The shapeless pair, 
As they design'd to mock me, at my side 
Took step for step. 

The weather notes of the week would furnish a 
record of the most various and diverse character ; 
frost and thaw, rain and fog, sunshine and gloom, 
alternating and contrasting sharply with each other. 
The seasons have seemed out of joint, and the charac- 
teristics of November have prevailed rather than those 
of February. And yet there are abundant signs that 
spring progresses. It is curious to note, indeed, to 
what an extent the resuscitation of life goes on, inde- 
pendently of exterior conditions. The mere lapse of 
time, ' the process of the suns/ apart from the accidents 
of heat and cold, seems to advance the march of 
existence, as it is said to ' widen the thoughts of men.' 

Walking at noon in the lanes when the frost had 
melted a little on the hedge-banks, although the ice 



February. 1 5 



was still thick in the ditch below, I could detect the 
opening leaves of a ranunculus and of two or three 
bright little trefoils. In the open garden the only 
new flower is the hardy polyanthus, some tufts of 
which are just ready to break into bloom. In the 
greenhouse there is a new pleasure : the many- 
coloured hyacinths are open, and load the air with 
their delicious odour ; there is also the delicate 
blossom of the Scilla-amcena, a dainty bit of aerial 
blue, more exquisite even than "that of our English 
forget-me-not. In the hot-house the most striking 
things are the begonias, with their pale-pink and 
eccentrically-shaped flowers ; and in the fernery we 
have a myriad-twinkling of green, an unfolding of 
woclly crook-shaped and caterpillar-like buds ; and, 
best of all, a row of hart's-tongue, the new leaves of 
which look like six or seven white eggs laid in a 
green nest. Some of the old fronds of these are over 
two feet in length. I think those were not much 
larger which one used to see growing so luxuriantly 
on the sides of the draw-well in the courtyard of 
Conway Castle. 

That the birds have not had a hard winter is 
obvious from the clusters of red berries which I still 
find hanging on the hawthorn bushes. Every day 
now they become more noisy, more demonstratively 



1 6 Country Pleasures. 

busy and officious ; but one must admit that even 
their elementary twittering brings a joy to the heart 
such as the most elaborate music would not give. 

In the dove-cote I see that nest-building is going 
on with energy ; but I do not find that there are any 
eggs yet. The statutory time for these, I am told, is 
the feast of St. Valentine. 

I am much interested in an ancient-looking 
sparrow which comes and sits in a large thorn over 
my head while I am feeding the doves and peacocks. 
After the larger creatures have gone to a respectful 
distance he drops down, and in a very self-satisfied 
manner picks up the morsels that remain. He is a 
philosopher. If he cannot have first and best, he 
takes what he can get with dignity and composure. 



VI.—SNO WDROPS. 

February 20. 

These first flowers of spring — what a gracious 
charm they have, a charm which is all their own ! 
The meanest and poorest little blossom is more to us 
to-day than a whole parterre of gaily-coloured, summer 
favourites will be a few months hence. ' I only wish 
to live till the snowdrops come again ; ' one can under- 



February. 1 7 



stand that line better if one has ever seen the face of 
a sick child, who has been imprisoned all the winter, 
light up at the sight of an early spring flower. Our 
snowdrops came out on the nineteenth. I found the 
first one at the foot of the yellow-jasmine, whose 
flowers, by the way, are almost quite fallen. I thought 
it was alone — only a forerunner — but I soon discovered 
that they were out all round, in the wild-garden, and 
along the beds. What a perfect piece of work it is ; 
and what a delicate harmony is the result of its snow- 
whiteness streaked with pale green ! No wonder it 
should stand for us as an emblem of unsullied 
purity : — 

Make Thou my spirit pure and clear 

As are the frosty skies, 
Or this first snowdrop of the year 

That in my bosom lies. 

The sunshine which brought out the snowdrops 
removed the final remains of our snow-man, for the 
last vestige of him disappeared on the same day. One 
of my little people came to me with quite a piteous face 
to say that the ' man ' was all gone. However, he had 
an existence of three weeks, and his end was classical. 
He was himself his own monument ; and, in a certain 
sense, he may be said to have been disposed of by 
cremation. 

c 



1 8 Country Pleasures. 

Lord Bacon held that all life was larger and more 

vigorous ' upon the full of the moon/ I have noticed 

this week that one or two of our nights, lighted by the 

full moon, have been in great contrast with our days. 

The latter were common-place, colourless and dreary 

— the sky blotted with featureless clouds ; but at night, 

a wind springing up, as is often the case, existence 

became a grander thing. I saw the moon roll up out 

of the east — and what a roll there is in her motion 

when she is near the earth — of such a breadth as to 

make her appearance startling and phenomenal. And 

then began her slow ascent through a clear sky. 

Could I help reverting to those magical lines in the 

old sonnet — 

With how sad steps, O Moone, thou clim'st the skies ! 
How silently, and with how wanne a face ! 

but when, at last, she reached the zenith, the sentiment 

seemed to change ; she was now regnant, and I said 

to myself — 

The Moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare ; 

and again — 

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 

It was a glorious picture ; and the note of it was 
unity and simplicity ; no stars to lead away the mind, 
oo clouds, and hardly any shadow ; only the moon 



February. 19 



and the sky which held her, and the receptive earth. 
How still and quiet the old house looked with only 
its one light glimmering — a home of sleep standing 
in the midst of its moonlit belt of evergreens ! 

After this came some real spring weather. The 
sun for the first time in the year could be felt as a 
source of perceptible warmth, that warmth which, like 
wine, makes glad the heart of man. A brisk wind 
made a pleasant noise, and tossed about the bare 
branches of the trees ; the short, new blades of grass 
could be seen in the meadows, distinguishable by 
their freshness from those which have been compara- 
tively green all through the winter ; the strawberry 
leaves began to unfold their fans, and the gooseberry 
bushes were covered with leaf-buds, which looked 
like pin-points of light. Towards evening the sun 
had done his work of calling forth the new stream of 
insect life : and in the level beams one could see the 
strange dance of gnats going on — the curiously 
monotonous pirouetting up and down a two-feet 
space of air. A short life, I suppose, and a merry 
one. 



c 2 



20 Country Pleasures. 



VII.— THE CROCUS. 

February 27. 

In our Calendar of flowers this must be the week of 

the crocus, as the last was that of the snowdrop. The 

two flowers are always pretty near to each other in 

point of time. The colder and paler blossom comes 

first, but the warm crocus is never long after it. By 

the ' warm crocus ' I mean, of course, the deep 

yellow one, which is the most characteristic and the 

most precious, because it looks like sunshine on the 

ground, now, when sunshine is scarce. The yellow is 

indeed wonderfully brilliant — brilliant almost as a 

flame. Tennyson quite appropriately makes CEnone 

say — 

Naked they came to that smooth-swarded bower, 
And at their feet the crocus brake like fire. 

One must not despise, however, the other two colours, 
the lilac and the white, which are beautiful enough 
in themselves — the white especially, when it is fully 
opened and shows its large saffron-coloured stigma. 
That would be no starved or unlovely garland which 
one might make of flowers culled entirely from the 
pages of our lesser and almost unknown poets. The 
other day I lighted upon the following dainty fancy 
by Sebastian Evans : — 



February, 2 1 



Come, gather the crocus-cups with me, 
And dream of the summer coming : 

Saffron, and purple, and snowy white, 
All awake to the first bees humming. 

The white is there for the maiden-heart, 
And the purple is there for sorrow : 

The saffron is there for the true true love, 
And they'll all be dead to-morrow. 

Like many other good things, the crocus is a gift 

from the east ; and Milton appropriately puts the 

flower into his Paradise. 

Under foot the violet, 
Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay 
Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone 
Of costliest emblem. 

Finding the crocus out in my own garden, I 
strolled towards an old house, not far distant, where I 
knew I should see them in greater profusion. Passing 
under a row of beech trees, I descend a steep lane 
paved in the middle with the old-fashioned cobble, 
and at the side with larger stones as a causeway. 
On the banks here, when I was a boy, I used to 
gather the speedwell and the violet ; but they are 
gone now, and I fear are not destined to return. At 
the bottom, in what is locally called ' The Hollows/ 
are three or four cottages which lean fraternally to- 
gether. Two or three streamlets gather into a brook ; 
and as each water-course has its own tiny valley, the 



22 Coitntry Pleasures. 

conformation, for so small an area, is singularly varied. 
A tall wood overhangs and makes, from most points, 
a fine background. The cottages are white, but 
weather-stained ; the roof-lines bend and waver ; and 
on each gable there is the old ball-and-pinnacle 
decoration. Long ago there was a water-wheel and 
a mill here. Allusion is made to this in an inscrip- 
tion, couched in questionable Latin, over the porched 
door of one of the cottages: — 

T. 

S. S. 

Hanc domum 17 13 

Condebant Molam 17 14 

Homo Viviscit Tunc 

Fabricat Mox 

Occumbit. 

Ascending, again, by another short and steep lane, 
I come upon the old mansion ; and on the grassy 
brow in front I see the crocuses again, as I have seen 
them now, never failing in their season, for more 
years than one would care to name. They are not 
all out yet, but a few sunny days will bring them into 
full bloom ; and then many a pale mechanic will be 
seen wandering out from the town in the evening, 
with his children by the hand, to look at the familiar 
sight. It is a good thing to plant crocuses, as these 
have been planted, in the grass, after they have 



February, 23 



flowered one year in the beds : they need no more 
removing and multiply themselves without trouble by 
throwing off new bulbs. 

Few of those who come to look at the crocuses 
will now see the ancient lady of the house, who still 
watches over the flowers. Charles Lamb would have 
delighted to sketch both her form and character. 
She is a survival from a statelier age than ours ; sweet 
in manner and yet reserved ; an aristocrat without a 
title ; careless of the rich, but kind to the poor, and 
curiously reverenced by such of them as are native to 
the soil. Alas ! here, too, all is changing, and she 
must often look out sadly enough on the ordered files 
of modern houses which are marching with ominous 
rapidity towards the once secluded home of her child- 
hood. 

The weather this week has been for the most part 
dim and rainy ; and yet the sky has not been without 
beauty, especially towards dusk — the beauty of soft 
grey cloud breaking into many shades, as the light 
moved behind it, and woven across by the dark 
branches of the trees. At six o'clock in the evening 
I heard the thrush singing for the first time in the 
"wood : for a few minutes there was quite a chorus of 
birds, but his note, mellow and yet loud, overpowered 
them all. The house-pigeons are sitting. In the 



24 Country Pleasures. 

open air the birds are beginning to mate, but there is 
no nest-building yet. 

A leafless mezereon which stands in the orchard- 
house — where there is no artificial heat but only pro- 
tection from exterior cold — is in full bloom ; and a 
pear-tree on a south-west wall is covered with yellow 
and glutinous-looking leaf-buds. At the foot of the 
same tree there is a bunch of ' living green,' which, 
later on, will climb higher up the bole, and array it- 
self in the delicate blossoms of the sweet-pea. 



March, 25 



MARCH. 



Slayer of the winter, art thou here again ? 
O welcome, thou that bring'st the summer nigh ! 
The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain, 
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky. 
Welcome, O March ! whose kindly days and dry 
Make April ready for the throstle's song, 
Thou first redresser of the winter's wrong ! 

William Morris, The Earthly Paradise. 



VIII.— SPRING-TIME IN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

Legberthwaite : March 4. 

We shift the basis of our Country Notes this week 
from Moston to Thirlmere and the Vale of Saint 
John. It is a ' far cry/ and our journey hither was 
not over till after midnight — a rainy and a murky 
midnight. At first a certain fascination arises from 
passing in the dark along roads and through scenes, 
every turn and aspect of which have become familiar 
to you ; but at length this becomes wearisome ; we 
are jaded ; we hear only the monotonous clatter of 



26 Country Pleasures. 

the horses' feet, see only the tree-trunks hurrying past, 
and now and then the white foam on the lakes ; but 
once in-doors and there is a right hospitable welcome 
and a blazing fire. 

In the morning the rain had passed away, and 
only to look out through the chamber window was 
peace. We are sojourning in an old country-house, 
built in the early part of the seventeenth century, and, 
like all such houses, quaint and rambling, but every- 
where suggestive of repose. A smooth lawn slopes 
down gently to the lake's edge ; but on the further 
shore are the savage fells, and behind us is the breast 
of Helvellyn. The rooms are not large, but they 
have been built for comfort ; and, just as in some of 
our old cathedrals, one finds every style and random 
fancy of architecture, from the earliest arch to the 
latest reredos ; so here one sees, either in the struc- 
ture itself or in its furniture, something which will 
mark for us every quarter-century, perhaps, since the 
foundation was laid. The floors are polished : the 
staircase is of black oak, with twisted rails ; one small 
piece of painted, ancestral glass adorns the landing ; 
grates and mantelpieces are Georgian — they make 
you think of the wigs which many a night must have 
nodded over them ; and up and down the apartments 
there are dainty-looking black chairs, with traces of 



March. 27 



faded gilding upon them ; queer mahogany cabinets, 
obese and bow-legged, adorned with lacquered metal- 
work ; water-colour sketches very early and very 
pale ; ingenious devices in silver, almost worn away 
by much polishing ; implements of sport and of the 
field — saddle and bridle, boot and spur, hook and net ; 
and, last, many an old folio — sermon or history or de- 
votion — resting still in its ponderous and musty calf 
binding. 

It is not difficult to shape for oneself the kind of 
life which people must have led in an ancient house 
like this long before the poet Gray had so much as 
discovered the country. What delightful summer 
days they must have had, when the old-fashioned 
garden with all its sweet posies was in bloom, and 
when the bees were out on the fells ; and what wild 
winter nights, when even Keswick would be cut off, 
and when Dunmail Raise was blocked with snow ! 
A lonely, leisurely, uneventful, and yet, withal, an 
eminently comfortable life. Among the bookish 
treasures which I turned over here, perhaps the most 
fruitful in making the past familiar to me was a 
manuscript volume of cookery recipes, the ' painful ' 
record left by some notable housewife of the last 
century. It bears the date 1721, and is written in the 
large, upright, and ornate hand of the period. There 



28 Country Pleasures. 

was at any rate no stint of cunningly-devised dainties 
in those days. We read of how to make * strong 
mead ' and how to make ' small mead/ along with 
many other comforting drinks ; and how to make 
' rare sweet water.' Think what water it must have 
been when this was the initial process : ' Take mar- 
joram, lavender, rosemary, muscovy, thyme, walnut- 
leaves, damask roses, and pinks.' And here is a 
recipe in full, which I give with all its quaintness and 
singularity of spelling : — 

To make Gelles of Currens. 

Pull ye Currens when they are Drye and pick them, and 
put a few Rasps to it, if you have them ; and Sufuse them in 
an Earthen pott all night over the fire in a Cettle full of water ; 
but mind that ye water Do not gett into ye pott ; then squese 
them in your hands and strain them through a Cloth, taking 
care of ye seeds that they goe not in ; and to Every pint of 
Serrip a pound of Double Refined Shugar, and beat it ; put 
your Shugar in ; Set it over Clear Coals and Lett it boyle up, 
and Scum it, if there be need, then put in your Serrip, Letting it 
not boyle ; Always stirring it till you think it will Cette, which 
you may Know by Dropping A Little upon a plate, and Lett it 
Stand till it be cold ; but take care you let it not be over Stif, 
and when you think it is Right, then take it of ye fire and put 
it in your Glases hott, this will serve for any other Gelles. 

It seems to me that the spring is less advanced 
here than at home. The snowdrops are plentiful and 
very lovely, growing, not as with us in single tufts, 



March. 29 



but thickly together in white patches, like daisies, 
under the trees and on the grass, There are large 
bunches of them set on the table at meals ; they look 
wintry, but the smell of them, faint like the primrose, 
is very charming. The only other plant which I can 
discover in flower is the gorse, and that is but just 
breaking its bud. In the woods there is no new 
leafage yet. The whole landscape might be painted 
in three colours — brown, green, and grey. The spray 
of the trees is brown, the bracken on the mountains is 
brown, and the deep drift of leaves and beech-nuts in 
the hollows and under the hedges is brown ; the grass, 
and the ubiquitous moss, and the laurels are green ; 
while the tree-stems and the skies are grey. 

Sailing on the lake, we see that there are still 
streaks of snow on Helvellyn Low Man. The wind 
is north-west, and the sky is clouded ; but sometimes 
there is a bit of fleeting blue ; and now and then a 
momentary and unexplained gleam of sunlight lying 
on the broad shoulder of some distant mountain 
makes one think of Bunyan's Land of Beulah. 

The birds are plentiful. They seem to have fine 
covert under the thick, round bushes of laurel ; there 
are many finches, the green-finch being most beautiful 
and conspicuous. I saw several flocks of wild ducks 
cross the lake ; there was also the black-and-white- 



30 Country Pleasures. 

winged gooseander, and two or three herons ; one of 
these lighted upon a fir-tree, and a queer object he 
looked, swinging about and stretching forth his long 
neck. I must not forget to mention a little wren, no 
bigger than a plum, who was standing on the top of a 
pollard-willow. He nodded to me as I passed, as if 
to say ' good morning,' and then turned into his house, 
which was a hole in the tree. 

The tourist, who is making the usual rush from 
Grasmere to Keswick, seldom gets more than a 
glimpse of the Vale of St. John ; but no valley in the 
district would better repay quiet and careful exami- 
nation. It is wide enough for a vale, yet in places 
it has the romantic character of a gorge, and very 
grandly is it walled in by the pyramidal forms of 
Saddleback. Sir Walter Scott calls it — 

The narrow valley of Saint John, 
Down sloping to the western sky. 

And his further description is not inapt : 

Paled in by many a lofty hill, 
The narrow dale lay smooth and still, 
And, down its verdant bosom led, 
A winding brooklet found its bed. 
But, midmost of the vale, a mound 
Arose, with airy turrets crown'd, 
Buttress, and rampire's circling bound. 
And mighty keep and tower. 



March. 



We found this vale full of refreshing contrast and 
healing influence as we wandered along it on Sunday 
morning to the small church at the farther or northern 
end. There was a little sunshine on the hedges, and 
I could detect the new leaves of the wild -strawberry, 
the celandine, and the wood-sorrel. How perfect was 
the stillness — perfect because broken, but broken only 
by the fall of distant water, the low chirp of birds, 
and the sough of the wind. The church, as usual 
in this country, is a lowly building. You enter the 
yard under an arch of thick holly and box — the holly 
still carries its red berries — and there is a willow 
trained round the porch ; the graves are mostly 
nameless, but the snowdrop carries its white memo- 
rial over rich and poor alike. 

To-day I have been to Rydal, and looked in upon 
an old artist friend, who now, wisely enough, makes 
his home there. We found him lovingly at work on 
a sprig of willow, trying to realise the poet's descrip- 
tion of the — 

Satin-shining palm 
On sallows in the windy gleams of March. 

Happy painter ! his life is his work, and his work 
is only the religious love of nature expressed in act ! 
There was misty rain on the hills, but Rydal cannot 
be spoiled, and everything was touched with quiet 



Country Pleasures. 



beauty. We walked together to the margin of the 
Mere, and then up to Wordsworth's old house, where, 
on the famous terrace, we found cowslips and daisies, 
mingled with snowdrop and crocus ; and, under the 
porch, in pots, carefully tended as a kind of votive 
offering to the dead, there was the lesser celandine, 
his own chosen and favourite flower. 



IX.—SHRO VETIDE. 

March 12. 

In the Third Book of Kenelm Digby's Broad Stone 
of Honour, there is an eloquent passage in which the 
writer, trying to set forth, as is his wont, the attractive 
side of the Middle Ages, shows how the common life 
was then beautified by the mingling of the natural 
and the ecclesiastical seasons. Without accepting in 
full these romantic and sentimental views, one may 
admit the wisdom of breaking the dead monotony of 
modern existence by observing, especially for the 
sake of the young, such simple festivals as yet remain 
in vogue. Since I last wrote, the feast of Shrovetide 
has been duly honoured among us, in the old- 
fashioned country style, with all customary rites and 
ceremonies, aesthetic and culinary. 

The first thing is to take down the ' Christmas,' as 



March. 33 



the decorative evergreens are alway called in Lancashire. 
We never allow this to be done until Shrovetide has 
come in, and then the doing of it is not an operation 
but a ceremony. It marks a point in the history of 
the year, when, even if we look back with some regret 
on the indoor festivities of Christmas, we are also 
looking forward to the out-door pleasures of spring. 
And so there was much seasonable merriment and 
boisterous shouting as the ladder was carried about, and 
the great bunches were hauled down and taken by 
many willing hands to an open space in the garden. 
Then, when all had been heaped up, a live coal was 
put underneath, and the dry but yet resinous mass 
of holly and ivy, laurel and fir burst into such a fire 
that the light of it, for a few minutes, might have been 
seen for miles over the dark fields. It was a fine 
thing to watch the sharp, arrowy flames darting out 
from the central mass like living creatures, as if in 
search of something to devour. When we went in- 
doors again we found the house filled with the sweet 
scent of the burnt branches. I must not omit to 
mention that a bough of mistletoe was saved and 
laid up with the yule-log brand to be kept until next 
year. 

And then came the scene in the kitchen, where 
one who will not wear that symbol again, at any rate 

D 



34 Country Pleasures. 

for a twelvemonth, donned the cook's apron, wielded 
the hissing pan, and tossed the savoury cakes into the 
air. Herrick has a quaint little poem on the taking 
down of the evergreens, but he fixes the time for it as 
Candlemas Eve, not Shrovetide : — 

Down with the rosemary, and so 
Down with the bays and misletoe ; 
Down with the holly, ivy, all 
Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas hall ; 
That so the superstitious find 
No one least branch there left behind ; 
For look, how many leaves there be 
Neglected there, maids, trust to me, 
So many goblins you shall see. 

Our maid carefully gathered up the scattered leaves, 
and so, even in the old oak-room after midnight, 
there were no goblins to be seen. The hall looks 
naked enough now the accustomed garnishing is gone ; 
but to-morrow we shall put up the orthodox branch 
of green box, and that will hold its place till Easter 
comes round. 

The weather has been quite March-like in charac- 
ter. We have had some rain, a little light frost at 
night, and much heavy wind, rising on one occasion at 
least into a gale. At sunset there was a momentary 
gleam of crimson, over which the clouds suddenly 
swirled and it was dark : a little while after, through 
another rift in the vapour, there was a vision of the 



March. 35 



new moon with the old moon in her arms — the strange, 

spectral disk, with the thin bright crescent at its 

edge — 

O say na sae, my master deir, 

For I fear a deadlie storme. 

Late late yestreen I saw the new moone 

Wi' the auld moon in hir arme ; 

And I feir, I feir, my deir master. 

That we will com to harme. 

No doubt, as Coleridge has it — 

The bard was weather-wise, who made 
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence. 

At any rate, soon after this there was a great roaring 
in the wood, and a tossing and smiting together of 
branches, which continued through the night. The 
next morning the dead twigs of winter were strewn all 
over the ground. 

The leafage is increasing in the garden, and is now 
for the first time beginning to be perceptible as a 
cloud of green. The fruit-trees — currant, gooseberry, 
cherry, and pear-tree — are most forward. The labur- 
num shows its white leaf-bud, and the lilac its dark 
green. The flowering currant is in bloom. In the 
greenhouse the camellias, which have been making a 
great show with their scarlet and white, rose-red and 
blush-pink, are now nearly over. By the way a 
friend gives me intelligence from Cornwall which 



36 Country Pleasures, 

makes our latitude seem cold and bare indeed. There, 
he tells me, the camellias are flowering in the open air, 
the primroses are by thousands in the hedge-banks, 
and men lie on their backs in the sun. 

The birds are hard at work on the lawn in a 
morning. They seem to get an ample breakfast with 
marvellous rapidity. To-day I counted fourteen 
starlings in a flock, ' feeding like one ' — the sun shin- 
ing on their metallic-looking plumage as they struck 
their long, yellow bills into the ground. A little 
apart from the crowd were three or four throstles, less 
bold, and feeding more daintily. The starlings, I 
think, have begun to build. We see them carrying 
sticks and straws under the eaves of the barn. 
The plumage of this bird, though subdued, is very 
beautiful if carefully examined. The feathers are 
blue, green, black, and a lightish purple, and some 
of them are curiously tipped with buff. As the bird 
moves in the sun these colours mingle, and produce 
that steely appearance to which I have already alluded. 



X.— DAFFODILS. 

March 20. 

In the early part of the past week there have been 
some nights of keen frost ; the thermometer marked 



March. 37 



a minimum of five degrees below freezing, and we 
had fields and roof-tiles whitened in the morning ; 
but later the weather has grown more genial. There 
has been but little rain, and in the middle of the day 
we have even seen clouds of dust — that dust which, 
as the old saying has it, is, in March, worth a king's 
ransom. The soil is what the gardener calls ' mellow, 
turning over without sticking to the spade : and in the 
kitchen-plots we are beginning to put in plants and 
seeds. 

Can anything be more delightful than these spring 
mornings are ? Even the shadows lie softly and 
tenderly along the ground, which is yet moist with 
newly melted rime ; the doves flutter down from the 
cote, and their • wings glance in the sun as they fly 
low about one's head ; and then, there is the -flicker 
all round you of bright, new buds coming from their 
sheaths in a virgin purity untouched as yet by smoke 
or grime. But best of all there are now the daffodils 
— a glorious sight ! We have them by hundreds in 
our little wood and in the old perennial flower-garden. 
They look best under the trees, growing without 
order or arrangement. To my thinking they are 
perfect both in form and colour. The form is classic 
and might be put into a Greek picture without modi- 
fication ; and the colour — well no wonder that some 



38 Country Pleasures. 

of our artists are enraptured with it ! Only look how 
the rich, deep green of the foliage passes through a 
tinge of the same colour on the outer petals into the 
two harmonious yellows which make the inner 
part of the flower. Some of them are still in bud, 
but both wind and sun are acting upon them, and not 
a few have shaken out their corollas to the breeze. 

The daffodil is eminently a flower of the wind. 
When you see it rudely tossed about you are not 
pained but gladdened. This must have been just 
the feeling which Wordsworth had when he wrote, 
in 1804, that nameless poem which is among his 

best — 

I wandered lonely as a cloud 
That floats on high o'er vales and hills, 
When all at once I saw a crowd, 
A host of golden daffodils ; 
Beside the lake, beneath the trees, 
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. 
Continuous as the stars that shine 
And twinkle o'er the Milky Way, 
They stretched in never-ending line 
Along the margin of a bay : 
Ten thousand saw I at a glance, 
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. 

The waves beside them danced ; but they 

Outdid the sparkling waves in glee : 

A poet could not but be gay, 

In such a jocund company : 

I gazed — and gazed — but little thought 

What wealth the show to me had brought 



March. 39 



For oft, when on my couch I lie, 
In vacant or in pensive mood, 
They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude ; 
And then my heart with pleasure fills, 
And dances with the daffodils. 

It was by the shore of Ullswater, in the woods 
below Gowbarrow Park, that Wordsworth saw the 
crowd of daffodils which suggested this poem. How 
much he owed to his gifted sister Dora one may judge 
after reading her description of the same sight, as 
given in her prose diary : — 

' I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew 
among the mossy stones about them : some rested 
their heads on these stones as on a pillow : the rest 
tossed, and reeled, and danced, and seemed as if they 
verily laughed with the wind, they looked so gay and 
glancing.' 

It is interesting to observe that while Wordsworth 
was indebted for the body of this poem to his sister, 
he also owed the crown of it to his wife. He himsell 
said : — 

'The two best lines in it are by M. W. The 
daffodils grew, and still grow, on the margin of Ulls- 
water, and probably may be seen to this day as 
beautiful in the month of March, nodding their golden 
heads beside the dancing and foaming waves/ 



40 Country Pleasures. 

The ' M. W.' was Mary Wordsworth, his wife, and 
the two lines are those which everyone feels to be the 
most pregnant and the most precious to us as a pos- 
session in literature : — 

They flash upon that inward eye 
Which is the bliss of solitude. 

The older poets were fond of the daffodil. Michael 
Drayton uses it as a simile for a shepherd's maid. In 
one of his poems he says : — 

* Gorbo, as thou cam'st this way, 

By yonder little hill, 
Or, as thou through the fields didst stray, 
Saw'st thou my Daffadil? 

4 She's in a frock of Lincoln green, 

Which colour likes her sight, 
And never hath her beauty seen 

But through a vail of white.' 

' Through yonder vale as I did pass, 

Descending from the hill, 
I met a smerking bonny lass, 

They call her Daffadil ; 

* Whose presence, as along she went, 

The pretty flowers did greet, 
As though their heads they downward bent 
With homage to her feet. 

* And all the shepherds that were nigh 

From top of every hill, 
Unto the vallies loud did cry, 
There goes sweet Daffadil !' 

The usually jocund Herrick catches the melancholy 



March 4 1 



rather than the joyous side of the daffodil, and moral- 
ises upon it with a sweet severity : — 

Fair Daffadils, we weep to see 

You haste away so soon ; 
As yet the early-rising sun 

Has not attained his noon. 

Stay, stay, 
Until the hasting day 
Has run 
But to the even-song ; 
And having prayed together, we 
Will go with you along. 

Shakspere's March flowers are the daffodil and 
the violet. Autolycus, in the ' Winter's Tale,' sings : — 

When daffodils begin to peer, 

With heigh ! the doxy over the dale, 
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year ; 

For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. 

And Perdita in the same play says : — 

Daffodils, 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets dim, 
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes 
Or Cytharea's breath. 

This last passage is probably the most perfectly 
felicitous piece of expression in the language, and 
our best example of discreet and faultless art, co- 
existing with the flowing opulence of an apparently 
spontaneous evolution. Much of the exquisite har- 



42 Country Pleasures. 

mony of the lines will be found to depend on the 
way in which alliteration, not too conspicuous, is 
carried from line to line, and on the fact that, per- 
haps with one exception, there are not in any one 
line two accented feet carrying the same vowel sound. 

We have no violets yet to match with our daffodils 
here ; but a friend sent me the other day a packet of 
them from Hereford. They had been gathered in the 
lanes, and are, I think, viola odorata — Shakspere's 
violet. The corolla is white, but there is a dash of 
yellow on the nectary, and the calyx is pale blue. I 
put them into a shallow vessel of water and they 
revived, and have given us in the room for days the 
scent of ' Cytharea's breath.' 

It is pleasant to see flowers so plentiful in the 
town now. In the market-place there are bunches of 
lilac and baskets of wallflowers for sale ; children cry 
primroses and violets in the street, the country carts 
come in with wreaths of daffodils about the horses' 
heads ; and, to-day, I met in the heart of the city a 
stately girl — she might have been Herrick's Julia — 
carrying, somewhat proudly, a great bunch of daffo- 
dils in front of her. If Burne Jones or Gabriel 
Rossetti or Frederick Shields had seen the thing they 
would have made a picture of it and called it ! The 
Lady of the Daffodils.' 



March. 43 



XL-SPRING-TIME ON THE COAST. 

March 27. 

After a mild morning on the twenty-first the frost 

set in again with great severity at night and lasted for 

some days. The fickleness of our English spring is 

proverbial : — 

As yet the trembling year is unconfirmed, 
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, 
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets 
Deform the day delightless. 

More than once we have had snow. On the twenty- 
second a few ' fortuitous atoms ' came wavering down 
in the early morning : we wondered if it could be 
snow ; then followed the large woolly flakes, and after 
that a whirling drift. The birds seemed quite startled. 
In half-an-hour the landscape was transformed — we 
were in mid-winter : in an hour it was all gone again, 
with the exception of a few flakes which looked like 
white blossom on the green of a budding elder. On 
the twenty-fourth there was a heavier fall. The snow 
was piled up on the window-sills ; there were icicles 
a foot long ; and all day there was a strip of snow 
plastered on the north-west sides of the trees. The 
cold has brought the robin to the window again and 
my gentleman-sparrow sits on the thorn waiting for 
his crumbs. The throstles seek their food not on the 



44 Country Pleasures. 

lawn but on the softer ground under the rhododen- 
drons. In the orchard-house the peaches are showing 
their delicate pink blossom. In the greenhouse the 
hyacinths are over, but their place has been taken by 
the barbaric colour of the tulips, — 

Deep tulips dash'd with fiery dew. 

I had opportunity last week of comparing notes 
of the country life here with that in a Lancashire sea- 
side village in the parish of North Meols. Although 
vegetation was not much further advanced, the air 
was, of course, milder than in this neighbourhood, 
and the sky wore that soft and humid blue which is 
the prime characteristic of spring. In an old Rectory 
garden, neglected and weedy, but beautiful in its 
negligence, I found the daffodils in full bloom, shaking 
their golden heads over an embroidery of crocus and 
primrose, or flaming like torches down some dark and 
grass-grown alley. Overhead the rooks were at work 
patching and mending their old nests. Some were 
slowly making wing with material from adjoining 
fields, some were sitting in the half-formed nests, 
looking uncomfortably large for their habitations, and 
others were perched on the swinging branches, ap- 
parently watching or superintending the progress of 
repairs. It is curious to find how few people there 



March. 45 



are who dislike the noise of a rookery. It is a proof 
of the power of association. The sound is harsh and 
dissonant enough, but it calls up so many pleasant 
pictures before the mind that it becomes quite a 
solace to listen to it. In the fields the ploughman 
was busy turning over the furrows, and all round 
there was the ceaseless music of the lark. I was 
listening for hours, but the ' rain of melody ' had no 
pause, for as one tiny singer grew weary of pouring 
out his ' full heart ' another, and sometimes two or 
three together, ascended into the blue and took his 
place. 

A short field-walk brought me to what once was, 
and, indeed, in great part, still is, one of the quaintest 
hamlets in England. The place is full of artistic 
quality, and it was no surprise to be told that both 
George Mason and Frederick Walker had found 
characteristic subjects there. Everything is pic- 
turesque, and is, it must be added, in a condition of 
unsanitary confusion. The cottages are mostly white, 
one-storied, lower at one end than at the other, and 
thickly thatched. Sometimes the straw roof curves 
round a little window like a lowering eyebrow, and 
here and there it is diversified with patches of brilliant 
moss. A narrow stream runs through the village and 
is crossed by small foot-bridges. It is not over clear, 



4.6 Country Pleasures. 

but the cows stand in it to drink, and the ducks 
paddle about and dive for worms. In the farm-yards 
were some odd-looking and curiously leaning stacks 
of bean-straw. It was pleasant to hang over the 
fences and look into the cottage gardens — gardens of 
the old sort — a little bush of silver-edged holly, a 
crooked willow in a corner with one primrose at its 
root, a tuft of polyanthus, a few crimson daisies, a 
bed of sage and thyme, and a bit of fresh, green 
parsley. 

Knowing that some friends were in the neighbour- 
hood, I inquired for them from a girl who was leaning 
against a cottage porch. Had she seen any one paint- 
ing ? Yes ; and I should hear of them- at the inn. 
At the inn I discovered one of my friends working from 
the figure. His picture might be called 'The Toilers 
of the Sea,' — a group of fisher-folk coming up sadly 
from the shore, bending under their burdens, the 
back-ground a wild and gleaming evening sky. The 
other was down in the meadows, south of the village. 
I found him painting a green bank and a willow 
hedge behind the figure of a woman — a cockle- 
gatherer ; — 

Blowzed with health, and wind, and rain, 
And labour ; — 

a piece of genuine life, real and true both in colour 



March. 47 



and form, and yet touched with poetic feeling. In 
these warm meadows we wandered until nightfall. 
We looked at the old Meols Hall, now a farm-house, 
where, in the days of Queen Mary, lived a certain 
Dame Mary Hesketh, who in later times was cast 
into prison for making converts to the ' papist faythe ; ' 
we noted the lovely colour of the budding willows— 
which are everywhere about, bending back from the 
sea in groves and in hedgerows — a soft, light brown, 
with a touch of pink in it, harmonising perfectly with 
the spring sky ; we found our first daisies in the grass, 
and the little shepherd's-purse on the banks ; and 
then, turning westward, we could see the undulating 
dunes of sand, a strip of the blue estuary, and a fleet 
of boats laid up for the weekly rest from labour. The 
costumes of the locality are still fine — quite Breton in 
character. The men have not learned the hateful 
prison-fashion of cropping their heads ; they have 
their hair long and wear bright blue jerseys. The 
women are stalwart, solid, ' dour ' persons ; they still 
keep to the short petticoat, and have lilac hoods, with 
stiff, outstanding frills ; and both their hands and faces 
tell of hard life by land and sea. 



48 Country Pleasures. 



APRIL. 

Proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim 

Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing, 

That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. 

Shakspere, Sonnets, xcviii. 

Oh, to be in England 

Now that April's there, 

And whoever wakes in England 

Sees, some morning, unaware, 

That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf 

Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, 

While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough 

In England — now ! 

Robert Browning, Home Thoughts from Abroad. 



XII.— MID-LENT AND ALL FOOLS'. 

April 3. 
' COMES in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb,' 
is the old saw about the month of March. Whatever 
rude and leonine blasts he might have indulged in 
during his early days, certainly his going out had 
nothing in it of a lamb-like character. I do not remem- 
ber a pleasanter or a more seasonable March than this 



April. 49 

has been ; but the last day of it was one of the vilest 
of the year — a bitter, biting, inclement, and dreary day. 
Every half hour there was a wild drift of sleet, and 
the frost was just severe enough to put that thin coat- 
ing of ice on pond and pool which gives you a sense 
of uncomfortable starving such as you don't get even 
in a much lower temperature. Cheerless, however, as 
the day was out of doors, we made the night cheerful 
enough within. We had a roaring coal fire and sat round 
it, remembering that it was the festival of Mid-lent. Our 
ancestors certainly deserve much credit for their in- 
genuity in devising of festivals. Shakspere's ' merry 
Shrovetide' is hardly out of sight before we find 
ourselves baiting, as it were, by the way at a little 
intermedial feast — a feast in the middle of a fast. 
Of course we partook of that mysterious cake — 
simanellus, simnel, or simblin — the last is our ordinary 
Lancashire pronunciation — whose history and the ety- 
mology of whose name are both vague enough to form 
the subject of constant warfare among our antiquarian 
pundits. Also, we compounded and passed round as 
a loving-cup the proper beverage for the day, the 
ancient braggat — bragawd of the Welsh — ancient as 
Chaucer — 

Hir mouth was sweete as bragat is or meth 
Or hoord of apples, layd in hay or heth ; — 

E 



50 Country Pleasures. 

more ancient still, for is it not found some eight cen- 
turies earlier in Taliesin and Aneurin ? 

I do not profess to have any great skill in these 
matters, but I think our braggat was fairly mixed, 
and a right pleasant drink. The curious may care to 
know that it consists of new-laid eggs well beaten, 
sugar or honey, hot ale, and a dash of nutmeg or 
other spice. I suppose it must be something like 
that ' egg-hot,' of which dear old Lamb was so fond, 
and to which he makes such frequent allusion. Writ- 
ing to Coleridge, he says : ' I have been drinking egg- 
hot and smoking Oronooko, associated circumstances 
which ever forcibly recall to my mind our evenings 
and nights at the Salutation! 

This festival, besides being known as Simnel 
Sunday, Mid-Lent Sunday, and Braggat Sunday, is 
also called by the singular name of Mothering Sun- 
day. The designation had probably a purely eccle- 
siastical origin ; but in later times it fitted itself to a 
pleasant social observance, and in country places the 
day is still known as a time when children revisit 
their parents, taking with them as a gift a simnel 
or other confection. Herrick, in one of his many 
poems addressed to Dianeme, alludes to this 
custom : — • 



April. 5 1 

He to thee a simnell bring, 
'Gainst thou go'st a mothering ; 
So that when she blesseth thee, 
Half that blessing thou'lt give me. 

During the latter half of last month there has 
been frost nearly every night, the thermometer being 
often down to twenty-five degrees ; but as a compen- 
sation, we have had bracing air and much noble sky- 
scenery : — the half moon riding through those undu- 
lating fields of white and grey cloud which make the 
most capacious-looking heaven we ever see ; or the 
sun, setting large and bright in a translucent west — 
pale green and of infinite depth and barred only by 
a few streaks of violet cloud — or overhung sometimes 
by threatening masses of vapour which are best de- 
scribed in the old Bible-phrase as like 'garments 
rolled in blood.' 

The changes of temperature have been very great, 
and show what we have to prepare ourselves for 
during what we are pleased to call spring weather. 
In the afternoon of one day the thermometer rose 
to 5 1 in the sun ; while it had been down in the pre- 
vious night to nineteen degrees. It is wonderful how 
well the birds stand the cold. Going out on starry 
nights before the moon had risen, and walking with- 
out noise under a high bank, I have seen them sit- 
ting in the bare hedge against the sky by five or six 



52 Country Pleasures. 

together ; and, even when the snow has been on the 
trees, they have seemed merry enough, fluttering over 
the old nests and scattering the flakes about with 
their wings. The starlings, however, during the 
severest weather, lelinquished their nest-building, 
and were seen going about in flocks again. 

It is interesting also to note how little the vegeta- 
tion is injured — it is, of course, retarded — by the cold. 
I have seen the tenderest half-uncurled leaf-buds filled 
night after night with snow or congealed moisture, 
and yet they show no blackening or sign of decay. 
The worst thing the frost did for us was to lay down 
the daffodils : but part of them rose again, and many 
are still only in bud ; and, some bright morning, ere 
long, there will be a new and glorious display. The 
only perceptible fruit-blossom out of doors is that of 
the pear-trees. It is formed but not opened or 
coloured, and it has been quite stationary now for 
more than a fortnight. In the garden the common 
elm is in flower, the bright yellow leaf-buds of the 
horse-chestnut are conspicuous when the sun is on the 
trees, and in the vinery the dry-looking canes are 
breaking all over into fresh green. 

Monday, the first of April, was signalised by a 
pretty smart fall of snow in the early morning. When 
one considers what the poets have written about 



April 53 

4 ethereal mildness ' and the like, this seems to be a 
not inappropriate occurrence for the day. As I have 
already quoted from Charles Lamb, I may as well 
conclude with another extract from his delightful 
pages — an extract which I take the liberty of apply- 
ing to my own uses : — 

1 The compliments of the season to my worthy 
masters, and a merry first of April to us all ! . . . 
Take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it 
you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of 
folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse 

matter in his composition And what are 

commonly the world's received fools, but such whereof 
the world is not worthy ? And what have been some 
of the kindliest patterns of our species but so many 
darlings of absurdity, minions of the goddess, and her 
white boys ? Reader, if you wrest my words beyond 
their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are 
the April Fool. 5 



XIII.— THE LESSER CELANDINE. 

April io. 

THE flower of the week is the bright little celan- 
dine, the beautiful but plebeian blossom of the fields 
and hedges. Crossing a meadow near the house you 



54 Country Pleaswes. 

come to a runnel of water between two grassy banks, 
and there, under a thorn, gleaming in the sun, is 
Wordsworth's flower. 

Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, 
Let them live upon their praises ; 
Long as there's a sun that sets, 
Primroses will have their glory ; 
Long as there are violets, 
They will have a place in story : 
There's a flower that shall be mine, 
'Tis the little Celandine. 

Ere a leaf is on a bush, 
In the time before the thrush 
Has a thought about her nest, 
Thou wilt come with half a call, 
Spreading out thy glossy breast 
Like a careless Prodigal ; 
Telling tales about the sun, 
When we've little warmth, or none. 

Wordsworth, in his annotation of the poem, the 
two finest verses of which I have given above, says :— 
' It is remarkable that this flower, coming out so 
early in the spring as it does, and so bright and 
beautiful, and in such profusion, should not have been 
noticed earlier in English verse. What adds much to 
the interest that attends it, is its habit of shutting itself 
up and opening out according to the degree of light 
and temperature of the air.' 

I suppose Wordsworth is right in his inference 



April 55 

that the flower had not been mentioned by any poet 
before himself ; nor, indeed, has it been much alluded 
to in later verse. Its colour is against it. To the 
careless observer it would be ' merely a buttercup,' 
but the loving student of nature despises nothin , 
overlooks nothing, and to him nothing is ' common 
or unclean ; ' he dare not doubt, and his reward is to 
find beauty lurking in the humblest forms. You 
must bend low over the celandine before you can see 
its loveliness, then you discern how brilliant is its 
burnished yellow, and how symmetrical are its ray- 
like petals and its heart-shaped leaves. We had an 
amusing instance the other day of its habit of shutting 
itself up quickly. One of my boys came running to 
tell me, with some pride, that he had found the first 
celandine in our little dell. I went with him to 
look at his prize. He had marked the exact spot and 
was sure he had left it there : but to his great mystifi- 
cation the flower was gone from sight. The day had 
worn a little towards evening and the petals had 
suddenly folded themselves tightly up. I found it for 
him snugly tucked away among the leaves. The sensi- 
tiveness of the plant is shown not only by its opening 
and shutting the corolla according to the temperature, 
but also by a change of colour. It may often be found 
with the yellow petals blanched white by a cold wind. 



56 Country Pleasitres. 

The celandine is later in our neighbourhood this year 
than usual. I have often known it to be the very first 
of the wild flowers. Wordsworth, though he wrote 
his poem on the last day of April, speaks of it as a 
February blossom : — 

February last, my heart 

First at sight of thee was glad. 

No rain, little or no frost, and the wind veering 
from north to south, through east — this would fairly 
describe the present prevailing weather. How subtle 
is the change in the character of the wind with each 
minute difference in the point of the compass ! — male- 
ficent, of course, when due east, and a horror to the 
highly-strung nerve ; becoming invigorating with 
the slightest turn to the north ; and genial with 
a corresponding inclination to the south. Old Tusser, 
in his ' Five Hundred Points,' thus tells off on his 
metrical fingers, as it were, the varying qualities of the 
winds : — 

North winds send haile, South winds bring raine, 
East winds we bewail, West winds blow amaine : 
North-east is too cold, South-east not too warme, 
North-west is too bold, South-west doth no harme. 

In the greenhouse the mignonette, which has been 
kept through the winter, is beginning to flower. One 
or two plants are sufficient to fill the whole place with 



April. 57 

a slight but delicious odour — an odour which does 
not destroy but mingles with the scent of other 
blossoms. In the open air the leafage of the apple- 
tree is making itself conspicuous, and the throstles 
are building in good earnest. I wish this bird were 
as cunning as the starling, or that I could teach it 
prudence. Here is the starling creeping through a 
small hole in the tiles to his snug nest. He is out of 
the reach of boys and safe even from the marauding 
cat. His sense of security makes him impudent ; he 
stands and looks at you with his head cocked up, and 
goes in and out of his house with an unnecessary 
frequency, as if he would say : — ' This is where I live, 
and I don't care if you know it. You can't follow me 
— a starling's nest is his castle.' But the poor foolish 
throstle, in spite of what, in our ornamental way, we 
call unerring instinct, will persist in putting his nest, 
year after year, where those who seek can both see 
and reach. On the fifth I observed a throstle gather- 
ing dry grass under a pear-tree ; it pulled and tugged 
until it had got so large a bunch in its mouth that it 
looked absurd and could hardly fly away. The next 
day I found its nest completed, in a low bush of 
broad-leaved holly. This bird has a taste for letters, 
for among the grass and slender twigs there was in- 
woven a considerable piece of a London paper. Al- 



58 Country Pleasures. 

though the outside was rough, the interior was neatly 
and smoothly plastered with clay, which, when I saw 
it, was yet moist from the bill of the artificer. On the 
same day I found another similar nest just finished. 
The roof of our garden winter-house projects and is 
supported on rough-hewn posts, which are covered with 
ivy ; against one of these posts the nest is built. It is 
dexterously worked into the hanging stems of ivy ; 
but it is so low that I can look into it as I pass, and 
so much exposed that I have tied the tendrils of the 
ivy more closely round it, both for protection and con- 
cealment. It has been plastered with mud, and it is 
also lined — as a piece of luxury, I suppose — with the 
soft fibres of some decayed wood. Yesterday I found 
that the first little blue egg had been dropped into the 
nest which the prescient bird — prescient in preparation 
if not in selection of place — had finished three days 
before. 

And here, too, was beauty, the little-regarded 
beauty of the bird's egg — beauty of form and of 
colour, perfect elementary form and delicately simple 
colour — lavished upon a corner where no eye might 
ever have seen it — where, probably, by no other eye 
than my own will it ever be seen. 



April. 59 



XIV.— THE DAISY. 

April 17. 

OUR native flora here is not so abounding in 
variety as to permit of our disregarding the advent 
of the simplest flower. I pass, therefore, this week 
from the common celandine to the still commoner 
bellis perennis — even its scientific name is a sweet one 
— the daisy, the flower of the children and of all the 
poets. 

Of course we have this flower in every season ; 
like the poor, it is always with us. I have seldom 
failed to find one, even at Christmas, on a bank 
under a privet hedge facing the south-west. In such 
a situation I have seen the hardy little blossom living 
on and on, through frost and snow, on dark days and 
on bright, opening timidly at noon, and closing up 
tightly at three or four o'clock, when the early night 
was approaching. Under these conditions a single 
flower is tenderly dwelt upon ; it becomes a friend ; 
and an almost sentient recognition seems to pass 
between you. 

But now the ' dog-daisy,' as we call it, is begin- 
ning to show itself in multitudes. During the 
present week, for the first time, it has forced itself 
upon our notice as a salient feature in the earth's 



60 Country Pleasures. 

floral decoration. By the little water runnel in the 
meadow we find it mingling with the celandine ; in 
the dell at the bottom of the garden it is side by side 
with another yellow and somewhat despised, but 
brilliant flower, the now leafless coltsfoot ; along the 
walks it is seen creeping up between the gravel and 
the grass border ; and on the lawns it is beginning, 
as usual, to spread itself in patches. The daisy is 
always in greater numbers than you think. In one 
small plot I have just counted more than a hundred : 
if I had been asked to guess I should have said there 
were twenty. It is now the first thing which I see in 
the morning. A few days ago I thought the bright 
little specks, as yet unopened, were only great drops 
of dew. In fact, the flower, while yet moist, glitters 
like a pearl in the first beams of the sun. It is no 
wonder that the children should love the daisy. Its 
lowliness of situation, its simplicity of shape and of 
colour, its prodigal profusion, will all commend the 
flower to them. Is the reader happy enough to 
remember the time when, as a child, his eyes first fell 
upon a field of daisies ; can he recall the delight 
which welled up within him when he first found that 
they were his to enjoy with impunity, even to gather 
without reproach ? 

Chaucer, who was the sworn knight and impassioned 



April. 6 1 

lover of the daisy, makes its place in the year a little 

later than now. With him it is always the flower of 

May — May and the daisy are joint symbols of spring. 

It has been said that Chaucer's many words about 

the daisy were merely conventional. I do not think 

there is any proof of that. His love of the flower 

was both singular and sincere. Shrewd man of the 

world as he was, courtier and scholar as he was, the 

heart of the child — the poet's sign, was always present 

with him. From what we know of him he was just 

the man to feel about the daisy exactly what he 

has told us. At the same time there is, of course, 

occasionally a strain of hyperbole in his language 

which can only be explained on the supposition that he 

was speaking of some exalted lady under the figure of 

his favourite flower. Like a student, he would leave his 

bed, or the amusements of his time, for the company 

of his books ; like a poet he would leave his books 

for the companionship of nature. In the prologue to 

the 'Legende of Goode Women,' he tells us that 

when the month of May is come, and he hears the song 

of birds, and sees the flowers begin to spring, then — 

Farwel my boke, and my devocion ! 

Now have I thanne such a condition, 

That of al the floures in the mede, 

Thanne love I most these floures white and rede, 

Such as men callen daysyes in our toune. 



62 Coimtry Pleasures. 

To them, he says, he has so great an affection that in 
this month of May the day never dawns upon his bed 
that he is not up and walking in the meadow to 
see this flower spreading itself against the sun ; its 
rising is such a blissful sight that it dispels all his 
sorrow ; he offers to it his greatest reverence, and his 
love is so hot that when evening comes he runs forth 
to see how it will go to rest ; and, he adds — 

Alias, that I ne had Englyssh, ryme, or prose, 
Suffisant this flour to preyse aright ! 

And doune on knees anoon ryght I me sette, 
And as I koude, this fressh flour I grette, 
Knelyng alway, til it unclosed was, 
Upon the smale, softe, swote gras. 

Chaucer, as I have said, connects the daisy with 
the month of May : Shakspere makes it an 
April flower. In 'Lucrece' there is this exquisite 
image : — 

Without the bed her other fair hand was, 
On the green coverlet ; whose perfect white 
Show'd like an April daisy on the grass. 

And in the song which concludes the play of ' Love's 

Labour's Lost,' the white and red of the flower is 

alluded to : — 

Daisies pied and violets blue 
And lady-smocks all silver-white. 

In ' L'Allegro ' Milton uses Shakspere's phrase : — 



April. 63 

Meadows trim, with daisies pied ; 
Shallow brooks and rivers wide ; 

and in ' Comus ' he speaks of the daisies, not the 
meadows, being ' trim ' — 

The wood nymphs, decked with daisies trim. 

This last expression is quite accurate, for the flower 
is neat and trim even to demureness, especially if we 
take it in bud, when the little yellow centre is sur- 
rounded by a circlet of crimson, and that again by a 
ring of white, each being pressed closely upon the 
other. 

The anthology of the daisy would be very incom- 
plete without Herrick's felicitous contribution. His 
little poem is based upon what I have already alluded 
to — the daisy's habit of folding itself up early for the 

night : — 

Shut not so soon ; the dull-ey'd night 

Ha's not as yet begunne 
To make a seisure on the light, 
Or to seale up the sun. 

No marigolds yet closed are, 

No shadowes great appeare ; 
Nor doth the early shepheard's starre 

Shine like a spangle here. 

Stay but till my Julia close 

Her life-begetting eye * 
And let the whole world then dispose 

It selfe to live or dye. 



64 Country Pleasures. 

There is one line of Burns, which has made im- 
mortal that mountain daisy which he turned down with 
his plough in April 1786. It is the first and the best 
line in his poem : — 

Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower. 

I must not omit Shelley's accurate and beautiful de- 
scription of the flower : — 

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth 
The constellated flower that never sets. 

Wordsworth, who desired to bring back to the flower 
its * long-lost praise ' — the praise which, he says, it had 
in Chaucer's time — wrote many poems on the daisy. 
With him it was the ' cheerful flower,' the ' poet's 
darling,' the ' child of the year,' and ( nature's favou- 
rite ; ' but the lines of his on this subject which will be 
longest remembered are these : — 

Sweet silent creature ! 
That breath'st with me in sun and air, 
Do thou, as thou art wont, repair 
My heart with gladness, and a share 

Of thy meek nature ! 

During the last few days we have had perfect 
April weather — a warm temperature, with sun, wind, 
and rain alternate and commingled. The throstle's 
nest in the ivy has now three eggs in it ; and the hen 
is sitting closely. The first egg } as I mentioned last 



April. 65 

week, was laid on the ninth, the other two were laid 
each morning of the two following days, and then the 
incubation began. The pear-blossom on the southerly 
wall of the house is now white and fully opened ; but 
that which is in the orchard is still only half unfolded, 
and is tipped with red. Twice in the year the thorns 
are supremely beautiful ; once when the vivid green is 
all outspread, and yet has not lost its freshness ; and 
again when the green is hidden by the profuse and 
snowy flower. The first of these stages has now been 
reached, and on some trees the blossom is just begin- 
ning to form itself. 



XV.— ON THE MOORLAND. 

April 24. 

WHEN the wind is easterly here, we have always 
one compensation — we can see the hills. Under 
ordinary conditions the last thing we should expect 
to discover would be a blue line of upland on the 
horizon ; but if the wind is with the sun-rising, and 
if it should also happen to be a day on which the 
ejection of smoke is less than usual, then a stranger 
would be startled by the nearness and distinctness of 
the hill-country. The range runs from east to south- 
east. It begins in Yorkshire with a craggy peak 
overlooking the vale of Saddleworth, it just touches 

F 



66 Country Pleasures. 

Lancashire, crosses a narrow tongue of Cheshire, 
and finishes in Derbyshire with the great buttress 
of Kinder Scout. To many people in the South of 
England it is a subject of wonder why we in the 
North should make so little use of this grand recrea- 
tion ground. We often run much further afield and 
fare considerably worse. If Wordsworth or Scott 
had written about it as they have done about their 
own neighbourhoods, what a change we should have 
seen ! 

Standing in my own garden I can always feel the 
breath of the hills — cold, perhaps, and often touched 
by the smoke of intervening towns, but never other 
than refreshing — and a walk of six or seven miles 
across country will take me at any time into their 
wildest and most unfrequented solitudes. By the 
railways, too, the edge of any part of the region may 
be reached in less than an hour. This rapidity of 
access is not unimportant, for the more quickly we 
can change our habitual surrounding the more bene- 
ficial is the effect on the mind. As often as we have 
opportunity, therefore, we escape to the hills. It was 
not an encouraging morning when, a day or two ago, 
we started for Hayfield, with intention to cross into 
Edale, the most secluded of the Derbyshire valleys. 
The rain fell persistently ; but still we had hopes of 



April. 67 

a change, for each now and then a stray sunbeam 
seemed to wander down among the moisture ; and 
so we were allured onward to the heights. As we 
climbed slowly up we were not without the sights and 
sounds of spring. In the lower meadows the new- 
fallen lambs were gambolling round the ewes : higher 
up the lark soared and sang heedless of the rain. 
Then we came out upon the broad moorland. The 
lark was heard no longer, and not the faintest sound 
came up now from the distant valleys. One voice 
only could we hear, and that the most characteristic 
of the moorland — the shrill and plaintive cry of the 
startled birds as they flew from us across the heather. 
Although there were of course none of those fiery 
tints which make the peculiar splendour of autumn, 
there was not wanting, even under that clouded sky, 
a certain wild beauty of colour — the brown and dark 
green of the whinberry, and many curious strips of 
bright emerald, where the moss grew over the marshy 
land. There is no loneliness like that of the high 
moor. On the peak of the loftiest mountain you 
generally see some indication of human neighbour- 
hood or habitation ; but having once climbed to the 
table-land of the moor, you are in an isolation of 
solitude which can only be compared with that of mid- 
ocean. For the literature of the moorland — moorland 



68 Country Pleasures. 

such as this — one must turn to the Brontes. Here is 
a passage — one out of many in ' Jane Eyre ' — which 
shows how completely ' Currer Bell ' had caught the 
spirit of such scenery : — ' I saw the fascination of the 
locality. I felt the consecration of its loneliness ; my 
eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep — on the 
wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell, by 
moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by 
brilliant bracken, and mellow granite crag. These 
details were just to me what they were to them — so 
many pure and sweet sources of pleasure.' 

The rain now began to fall more heavily, and we 
found also that we had somewhat missed our way, 
the lofty crags of Kinder — they rise to nearly two 
thousand feet — being too far to the north of us 
Making out the point in the ridge, some two miles 
away, from which the descent into Edale must begin, 
we struck boldly across the open moor ; but the rain 
got worse and worse, a cold wind began to rise, the 
ground was getting plashy under foot, and, most 
ominous of all, a few slow clouds were seen creeping 
up from the hidden valleys and meeting those which 
were lowering in the sky. We knew what that meant ; 
and turning back at once, began to make our way in 
a south-westerly direction towards the valley in which 
lies the little town of Chapel- en-le- Frith. It was well 



April. 69 

that we took this course, for soon after the whole moor- 
land was lost in swirling mist and cloud. If we had 
found our way into Edale at all — and the chances 
were much against it — we should have got a right hos- 
pitable reception at the clean little hostel, the Nag's 
Head, as we know from experience ; but we should 
have been too late to leave the dale, and must have 
spent the night there. Descending by a steep and 
miry path we came to the little fold or hamlet of 
Shire-oaks, where we made sure of our way, and took 
our last look at the wild and threatening moorland. 

And now, though the rain was still heavy, we 
came upon a scene of great beauty. Crossing a steep 
and wonderfully green meadow where the lady's- 
mantle was showing its broad leaves, we found our 
selves in one of the prettiest of Derbyshire lanes — 
and in this matter Derbyshire comes next, I think, to 
Devonshire. Here the bramble and the wild rose 
were making a brave show of leaves ; and, of flowers, 
there was the primrose in great tufts ; the common 
blue violet ; the little strawberry blossom, — 

Look at it — the flower is small, 
Small and low, though fair as any, — ■ 

the celandine in large numbers and making bright 
patches of yellow, and the wood-sorrel, most fragile 
and delicate of all our wild-flowers — a white, fairy 



70 Country Pleasures. 

chalice, faintly veined with lilac and set in the midst 
of its triple leafage of brilliant green. 

We were wet and weary when we walked into 
Chapel-en-le-Frith ; but what of that, the toilsome- 
ness and the rain will soon pass from the memory ; 
but what will never be lost is that which is alone 
worth preserving — the wildness of the moorland and 
the April beauty of the lane. 

We begin now to feel the full glory of the spring 
and to say to ourselves ' surely the winter is gone.' 
It is always some time in April, sooner or later, that 
the great transformation suddenly takes place ; and 
usually two or three days of warm rain will do the 
work. In those lines on the new year, which are per- 
haps the most melodious in ' In Memoriam,' the poet 
makes significant mention of the joyousness of 

April :-— 

Dip down upon the northern shore, 

O sweet new-year delaying long ; 

Thou doest expectant nature wrong ; 
Delaying long, delay no more. 

What stays thee from the clouded noons, 
Thy sweetness from its proper place ? 
Can trouble live with April days, 

Or sadness in the summer moons ? 

And, truly, it is no easy matter for trouble and sad- 
ness, though they wage a hard fight for it, to make 
good their footing among us in the midst of all this 



April. m 71 

new and bursting life. It is almost too rapid now for 
my chronicling. The chestnut has thrown back its 
glutinous and hairy sheath and set free its leaflets, 
which still, however, hang down towards the stem ; 
the elm and the poplar are green ; and if you stand 
with your back against the bole of the sycamore you 
will see what a thick roof of leaves it has spread over 
you. The pear-blossom is beginning to fall, while 
that of the apple and the cherry may be found just 
coming if you look for it. The currants and goose- 
berries, too, are in bloom. In the green-house the 
reign of the azalea and the geranium has begun, the 
first roses are out, and the scent is that of musk. In 
my throstle's nest the first tiny chick has made its 
appearance : it is about as big as a walnut, and the 
hen has got it snugly laid between the yet unhatched 
eggs. It is beautiful to see the little palpitating life, 
with its outspread and upturned mouth, lying with the 
two eggs, like two blue pillows, on either side of it. 

To-day I observe that the beech is budding, and 
that its colour is that of the dead leaves which have 
just passed away. Its complexion now is that to 
which it will come at last. Like ourselves, who in 
our old age fall into a second childhood, so this leaf 
in its decay will be again what it is in its first bud. 



Country Pleasures, 



MAY. 

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down 
Through the clear windows of the morning, turn 
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, 
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring ! 

Come o'er the eastern hills, and let our winds 
Kiss thy perfumed garments ; let us taste 
Thy morn and evening breath ; scatter thy pearls 
Upon our lovesick land that mourns for thee. 

William Blake, To Spring, 



XVI.— MAY-DAY. 

May i. 

We enter to-day on the • merrie moneth ' of our 
forefathers ; the bounteous and flowery month, the 
month of youth and of love. Shall we not, in the 
words of Leigh Hunt, ' persist in keeping up a certain 
fragrant and flowery belief on the altars of May and 
June ? ' It is not often that the May of actual life 
comes so near to that well-known ideal of the 
poets as it has done this year. At least we have had 
warmth, and that is something to console ourselves 
with, for in my notes of past years I see again and 



May, 73 

again on May-day — ' frost/ ' sharp frost,' and ' killing 
frost.' But this last week we have had a continuance 
of fine warm weather. On one morning only — April 
twenty-sixth — there was a slight rime on the grass, 
and just one degree of frost marked on the minimum 
thermometer. The pear-blossom has budded, bloomed, 
and fallen — a rare thing with us — without being once 
in jeopardy from extreme cold. Yesterday there was 
heavy rain, but it was pleasant to see it come, for we 
felt that leaf and blade and root were all thirsting to 
receive it ; and the birds, I observed, never stopped 
their music. It was the last of those ' schowres swoote 
with which, as Chaucer has it, April pierces the 
drought of March, bathing every vein in that virtuous 
liquor of which is engendered the flower of May. In 
the evening the rain ceased : but there was still much 
moisture in the air — it was that kind of weather 
during which we say, and almost with literal truth, 
' things may be seen to grow.' 

As it was the eve or vigil of Nature's greatest 
festival, we gave up the time to wandering in rural 
idleness up and down the garden, for indeed it seemed 
a shame to be indoors. And first the boys would 
have me look at some young pigeons. Climbing a 
perilous ladder in the barn, they brought down the 
nest, in the bottom of which two helpless and awk- 



74 Country Pleastcres. 



ward-looking birds were lying huddled together. It 
is marvellous how rapidly the young pigeon grows. 
These were but eight or nine days old and yet they 
were as large as a throstle. Going round the pond we 
found a newly-built blackbird's nest in a snug corner 
formed by the junction of a cross-ledge with a stump 
in the paling. It was sheltered by a thicket of elder 
and contained four eggs. In the orchard the cherry 
blossom was fully expanded, and very profuse, cover- 
ing the trees as with a sheet of white, and the apple- 
bloom was in that delightful stage when it shows itself 
as points of rose-red. In the Dutch garden there 
was a bed of tulips in full blaze of colour. They had 
been planted without arrangement, so that the scarlet 
white and yellow have come up promiscuously, and 
I never pass them without thinking of those quaint 
cotton gowns which were worn by our grandames in 
the days of the Georges. On the old English flower- 
bed, from which the daffodils have nearly all gone, we 
found the large-globed ranunculus, its yellow flowers 
resting on the singularly round boss of leafage ; the 
tall Solomon's-seal, its pendulous buds just opening; 
and the delicate white and green Star of Bethlehem, 
These two last are seldom seen now except in cottage 
gardens ; but they are both wonderfully graceful, and 
if they had uncouth names and cost large sums of 



May. 75 

money they would be great favourites in the con- 
servatory. Our next turn was through the wood, 
where we found that the primroses were just at their 
best: as it was by this time nearly dusk, they seemed 
to gleam like pale fire at the roots of the trees. On 
one tuft we counted between sixty and seventy flowers. 
Our ramble was now over, and coming round by. the 
house, we saw that the Siberian crab was in full bloom 
and that the beeches had spread out their silken and 
transparent leaves. These last, with the pink sheath 
still hanging upon them', looked as beautiful as a mass 
of flowers. Inside we found the younger children had 
been long in bed, vainly trying to fall asleep in the 
daylight, so as to be early awake in the morning. 

Although we were not up with the dawn to-day, 
we were in time to go a-maying, or, as Lysander says 
in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream ' — 

To do observance to a morn of May ; 

and though no one had given us Herrick's invitation 
at the chamber door, his words had not been out of 
mind : — 

Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see 

The dew bespangling herbe and tree. 
Each flower has wept, and bow'd toward the east, 
Above an houre since, yet you not drest, 

Nay ! not so much as out of bed ; 

When all the birds have mattens seyd, 



J 6 Country Pleasures. 

And sung their thankfull hymnes ; 'tis sin, 

Nay, profanation, to keep in, 
When as a thousand virgins on this day 
Spring, sooner than the lark, to fetch in May. 

The air out of doors was warm, though there was 
but little sun, and either rain in the night, or a heavy 
dew, had drenched the ground. Once or twice I saw 
the blue sky; but it was quickly clouded again, and 
the feeling became that of a misty and mellow autumn 
morning, without its sense of decay. Under such a 
light the green of the trees is always peculiarly vivid. 
By this time I had wandered into a neighbouring 
clough, and looking down into one of its steep ravines 
I thought I had never beheld anything so fresh and 
brilliant as were the beeches and thorns which, a hun- 
dred feet below me, were mingled with the less for- 
ward trees. And now I could hear the voices of the 
jocund company I was in search of. Before long they 
came in sight, trooping along the narrow path, some 
fifty or more in number, — children of all ages, their 
faces flushed with running and climbing, and the hands 
of the little ones filled with flowers. It seemed to be 
a return to the days of old. My heart was with them. 
' My heart,' I said— 

My heart is at your festival, 

My head hath its coronal, 
The fulness of your bliss I feel — I feel it all. 
Oh evil day ! if I were sullen 



May. 77 

While Earth herself is adorning, 

This sweet May-morning, 
And the Children are culling 

On every side, 
In a thousand valleys far and wide, 
Fresh flowers. 

And the flowers were plentiful as well as fresh. We 
have not many May- mornings on which so large a 
bouquet could be made. There was the bluebell — 
scarcely opened, it is true, but already fragrant ; the 
wind-flower, its petals white within, tinged with rose- 
colour without ; the red campion, the star-like satin- 
flower, the wood-sorrel, the celandine, and Shak- 
spere's lady-smock,— the May-flower of the children. 
During the day the weather has been almost 
sultry, and in the afternoon the grey clouds turned to 
an angry yellow ; then a wind seemed to tear them 
open from behind, and low thunder began to growl. 
And so the symbols of life and death are mixed — the 
spring-flower and the scathing flash, beauty and terror, 
sorrow and delight, how swiftly they follow each 
other ! 



XVII.— THE HISTORY OF A THROSTLE'S NEST. 

May 8. 

Of such country life as we find to be still possible 
here there is no part so delightful or so free from the 



78 Country Pleasures. 

sophistication of the approaching town as that which 
appertains to the habits and to the music of our 
feathered friends and neighbours. Inside our en- 
closures the birds are jealously preserved and guarded. 
We give them all the protection we can ; and probably 
our place is to them not only a home, but also an 
asylum and a refuge. They take the food we give them 
unmolested and ungrudged, and we think ourselves 
well repaid by the pleasure of listening to their songs 
and of watching their artless and artful ways. 

This morning I found that the young throstle in 
the nest on the ivied post had taken its departure. It 
was on the sixth of April that I first observed this 
nest. It was then newly-plastered with wet dung or 
clay, and lined with a little rotten wood. On the 
ninth the first egg was laid ; and on the tenth and 
eleventh I found the second and third. The thrush 
often lays four or five eggs ; but in this case there 
were not more than three. The bird then began to 
sit, and I have visited her every day since. I always 
took food with me, and gave a low whistle when I 
approached her nest, so that she knew when I was 
coming and was not startled. At first she flew away 
at the sound of my whistle ; but afterwards she began 
to know me, and would sit still until I was within 
hand's-reach of the nest. On the twenty-fourth one 



May. 79 

egg was hatched ; and as thirteen days is, I think, the 
usual period of incubation, this was probably the last 
of the three. By the following day the young bird 
had grown considerably, and the yellow mouth was 
wide open. On the twenty-ninth a small perforation 
had been made in one of the remaining eggs, appa- 
rently by the beak of the old bird, but no more chicks 
have been hatched. On the second of May the little 
creature began to show its plumage — on the crown of 
the head, on the wings, and down the centre of the 
back. On the fourth it was almost entirely feathered, 
and was so large that it seemed to fill the nest. If 
there had been three birds instead of one, this par- 
ticular mother would have been in the same quandary 
as that old lady familiar to the nursery, who had to 
rear her numerous progeny in an incommodious shoe. 
Finally, as I have already said, the fledgling took its 
flight to-day, the eighth of May, or about fourteen days 
after the time when it was hatched. This completes 
my domestic history of a Throstle's nest. 

The nests are now very numerous. This week I 
have come upon several. Two blackbirds have built 
on an old ivy-covered wall between the farm-yard 
and the garden. The nests are worked with great in- 
genuity into the stems of the ivy, and are somewhat 
sheltered by a row of poplars in front of them. They 



80 Country Pleasures. 

are about eight feet from the ground, and in one of 
them the hen sits quite still, with her head over the 
edge of the nest, while I stand underneath and look 
at her. In a field near the pond, embedded in a tuft 
of dry rushes, there is a small nest which contains 
four tiny, dullish brown eggs ; I am not sure yet to 
what bird these may belong : and on a stump in an 
exposed situation I found, a few days since, the nest of 
a warbler or hedge-sparrow. Here, too, there were 
four eggs, but of a light blue, and the most beautiful I 
have seen. 

Those bright blue eggs together laid ! 
On me the chance-discovered sight 
Gleam'd like a vision of delight. 

In the meadows just now the dandelion is making 
a glorious show — turning the green, in fact, into cloth 
of gold, such as the old knights might have jousted 
upon. I hope we are none of us vulgar enough to 
despise this flower because it is so common. It is 
neither fragrant in smell nor delicate in form, but it is 
strong and beautiful, bold and buxom — the saucy 
queen of the vernal bevy. My tastes are, perhaps, 
depraved ; but I must confess that I have even con- 
nived at the existence of a stray specimen of this 
flower in my garden, on a bit of rock-work or in some 
out-of-the-way corner visited only by myself. 



May. 8 1 

It is pleasant to find that even the dandelion has 
its laureate. Mr. J. Russell Lowell, in some verses which 
I think are not much known, thus sings its praises : — 

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way, 
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold ! 

First pledge of blithesome May, 

Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold — 

High-hearted buccaneers, — o'erjoyed that they 
An Eldorado in the grass have found, 
Which not the rich earth's ample round 
May match in wealth ! — thou art more dear to me 
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. 

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow 
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, 

Nor wrinkled the lean brow 
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 

'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now 
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, 
Though most hearts never understand 
To take it at God's value, but pass by 
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. 

Thou art my tropics and my Italy : 

To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; 

The eyes thou givest me 
Are in the heart and heed no space or time : 

Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee 
Feels a more summer-like, warm ravishment 
In the white lily's breezy tent, 
His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first 
From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. 



The apple -blossom is now a mass of mingled white 



82 Country Pleasures. 

and red, with a slight background of green — and what 
beauty that means every one knows. It is no wonder 
the painters should have so often tried, and so often 
in vain, to catch this dainty effect. I notice that its 
scent is that of a faint hyacinth ; while that of the 
cherry blossom is much stronger, and resembles the 
hawthorn. The birch and the lime are now about 
half in leaf, but the mountain-ash is fully expanded. 
Among the perennial plants we note this week that, on 
our old English bed, the lady's-mantle is in full bloom. 
The last two days have been cold and wet, with a 
heavy wind from the north-east, which has blown off 
the ripe petals from the orchard-trees ; without, how- 
ever, doing any harm ; but the fourth and fifth were 
nothing less than days of perfect Midsummer — the 
sky cloudless, and the thermometer rising as high as 
ninety-six degrees. The twilights were especially 
beautiful. Walking out at eight o'clock, I saw the 
peacocks flying to their roost high up in a tall elm. 
They preferred to sleep in the open air. The birds 
were all in chorus, and, as is usual with them, increas- 
ing in loudness as the night came on ; the thrush, 
the blackbird, and the robin being most conspicuous. 
Just as we turned in, the thin crescent of the new 
May moon was seen glimmering above the still leaf- 
less boughs of the ash- trees in the wood. 



May. 83 

XVIII.— THE WHITE-THORN. 

May 15. 

A BRANCH of white-thorn in flower and a bunch of 
sweet-scented lilies, both gathered in the garden, 
made our table garniture on the twelfth — old May- 
day. 

The ancients had many festive privileges ; but 
they had not, as we have, two May-days in one year. 
On the first we went forth to ' do observance,' as I 
have already told, but we were not able to come 
back ' with white-thorn laden home.' 

So far, therefore, our May-morning was shorn of 
its proper rites ; but on the twelfth we made amends, 
and brought in, with no little satisfaction, the typical 
blossom of the month. All our old writers seem to 
have taken it for granted that on the first of May 
the thorn would be in bloom ; and, after all, when 
we remember that their ' first ' was our ' twelfth,' the 
seasons, as experience of the present year shows, 
have not changed so much as we sometimes imagine. 
Gilbert White in his ' Naturalists' Calendar,' the re- 
sult of observations taken from 1768 to 1793, puts 
down the flowering of the hawthorn as occurring, in 
different years, upon dates so widely apart as the 
twentieth of April and the eleventh of June ; and 
this was in the southern county of Hampshire. The 

G 2 



84 Country Pleasures. 

twelfth of May, therefore, should be considered, and 

especially in Lancashire, as an early date — earlier 

than the average. 

Milton seems to have been familiar with frost as 

coming contemporaneously with the hawthorn ; for 

although in the short ' Song on May Morning,' he 

speaks of the — 

Bounteous May, that dost inspire 
Mirth, and youth, and warm desire ! 

in ' Lycidas ' he says : — 

Killing as the canker to the rose, 
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, 
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear, 
When first the white-thorn blows. 

One cannot always account for associations : but 
I never smell the hawthorn without thinking of 
Chaucer. Perhaps there is something in its honest 
and healthy sweetness which reminds us of the old 
poet's character and work. If the daisy were not his 
chosen sign, I would have Chaucer painted with a 
sprig of hawthorn in his hand. 

In the pages of Chaucer's latest disciple, we find, 
as we might expect, a pleasant mention of the thorn 
after the manner of the master : — 

Now must these men be glad a little while 
That they had lived to see May once more smile. 



May. 85 

And on that morn, before the fresh May dew 
Had dried upon the sunniest spot of grass, 
From bush to bush did youths and maidens pass 
In raiment meet for May apparelled, 
Gathering the milk-white blossoms and the red. 

Saturday, the eleventh, was a notable day. In the 
morning I found that there had been during the night 
a heavy wind blowing from the south-east, with floods 
of rain. The garden paths and the lanes were strewn 
with new leaves, and even with twigs of beech, 
chestnut, and elm, which the wind had torn off the 
trees. In the afternoon the breeze dropped and there 
was a warm, brooding sky, with ' shadow streaks of 
rain.' In the evening it became evident that a storm 
was coming on again. At seven o'clock I noticed that 
the countless daisies on the lawn and the great dande- 
lion on the rockery were tightly shut up. Patches of 
grey mist began now to drive rapidly across the sky, 
although beyond these, and far away, there stood up 
immense masses of white cloud perfectly still in the 
clear blue — a revelation as it were of an untroubled 
heaven beyond the turbulent sphere of the earth. 
Then there came a near flash of lightning, and an ex- 
plosion of thunder, which seemed to break with terrible 
violence under my feet. Some of the birds darted 
out of their nests and flew round in terror ; but two 
of them, a robin and a thrush, sang on unmoved 



86 Country Pleasures. 

through it all. I could hear them filling up the 
pauses even while the thunder rolled. The day closed 
with a brilliant sunset. This kind of weather is not, 
as might be supposed, at all unusual in May ; indeed, 
it is characteristic. Frederick Tennyson, in a little- 
known but very beautiful poem, published in 1854, 
describes a similar May-day storm. After speak- 
ing of the stillness and beauty of a noontide, in 

which — 

The clouds hung in the purple skies 
At anchor, like great argosies, — 

he goes on to tell how — 

Swiftly o'er the land is driven 
The Uragan, like smoke of War, 
From mountain-peak to sandy shore : 
The hills are dark, the earth is gray, 
All creatures fly the self-same way, 
Floods swell the thunder, and the herd 
And herdsman with one fear are stirr'd, 
The lightning fires the rick and farm, 
Red flames roar onward with the storm, 
And cries, and wails, and dismal knells 
Mingle, as the tumult swells, 
Towers crash, and granite mountains craze, 
And Fear beholds the end of days ! 

The ash is now breaking into leaf. I can just de- 
tect the greenness on the topmost branches, the lower 
ones are still bare. The oak-leaf was in the same 
stage about twelve days earlier. So if there be any- 



May. 87 

thing in the old adage about the oak and the ash we 
ought to have dry weather. 

In the garden the laburnums are in full bloom. 
In some counties this tree is called ' golden chain.' 
The simile is more appropriate than the Laureate's — 

Dropping- wells of fire ; 

for the colour is much nearer that of gold than of 
flame. Our little dell is blue with the hyacinth, and 
there are two or three red campions in flower. The 
strawberries also are in bloom ; the bud is on the 
mountain-ash, the elder, the lilac and the guelder-rose ; 
and the fruit is set and well-formed on the gooseberry 
and the pear. We see before us already the promise 
of autumn. 

To-night the moon, which is nearly at full, is 
shining on the hawthorns. They are much whiter 
than they were on the twelfth ; and as the old fami- 
liar scent reaches me, the mind wanders away to 
other scenes and to earlier days. I bethink me of a 
rude hamlet by the margin of a Cheshire mere, where, 
in the season, the whole land seems to lie under a 
coverlet of white bloom. In a narrow lane, whose 
sandy banks rise some eight or ten feet high, there is a 
black-and-white timbered house, standing at the top 
of a steep garden, where all the old flowers are in 



88 Country Pleasures. 

bloom. Above the two bee-hives, which rest on a 
wooden bench, there is a small leaded window, and in 
my dream I open the casement — a boy once more — 
and catch for the first time in my life the cool morn- 
ing air laden with that homely sweetness which is the 
breath of the English thorn. 



XIX.— BEES AND BLOSSOMS. 

May 22. 

In the present general outburst of vernal foliage we 
naturally forget that the evergreens, as well as the 
deciduous trees, are putting forth their new leaves. 
This is one of those lesser beauties of the spring, 
easily overlooked, but full of interest when once 
observed. 

The yew-tree now shows itself as a mass of leafage 
so dark as to be almost black, but wearing a fringe 
of yellowish green ; the box has six or seven bright, 
new leaves at the end of each spray, in sharp contrast 
with the sombre but polished growth of last year ; 
the ivy-buds are silver-grey, like the willow ; those of 
the holly are edged with red, and the rhododendron 
is a light green. In that delightfully childlike carol 
of Kit Marlowe, which gave such pleasure to the 



May. 89 

gentle soul of dear old Izaak Walton, the Passionate 
Shepherd promises to his Love — 

A belt of straw and ivy-buds 
With coral clasps and amber studs. 

It may have been the flower-bud which is here 
alluded to, but I think not ; for the song breathes of 
spring, and the ivy flower does not come until very 
late in the autumn, nor is it by any means so daintily 
beautiful as is a wreath of the half-opened leaves. 
The holly is blossoming now as well as leafing. The 
flowers grow in a curious cluster underneath the circle 
of leaves, and, though inconspicuous, are pretty 
enough when carefully examined. The new leaves 
of the holly are without spines, and as they are 
chiefly seen at the ends of the topmost branches, it 
must have been to them that Southey referred as 
1 the high leaves upon the holly-tree : ' — 

All vain asperities I, day by day, 

Would wear away, 
Till the smooth temper of my age should be 
Like the high leaves upon the Holly-Tree. 

While speaking of the evergreens, I must observe 
what a great boon to us are the rhododendrons. All 
the winter through, when almost everything else is 
cheerless and bare, they make a belt of bright foliage 
round the house — foliage which, fortunately, never 



90 Country Pleasures. 

looks better than when the pitiless rain is falling 
upon it ; and now for more than a month they have 
been spreading out for us great masses of bloom — 
splendid when seen in bulk, and much more beautiful 
in detail than is usually supposed. The white-flower- 
ing kinds came out first. The unopened buds of 
these are of a pink colour, while the fullblown flowers 
are pure white ; so that you often get from them the 
effect of a bush of white and red roses. The crimson 
sorts are out now, and with the saffron azaleas, also 
in bloom, they make a fine mass of colour in the 
garden, repeating the harmony, seen near them, of 
red hawthorn and laburnum. 

Among the rhododendrons you can always find 
the bees. I saw the first bee here on the nineteenth 
of April. It was one which had strayed into the 
greenhouse. It seemed full-grown and was sumptu- 
ously attired in its raiment of black and amber fur. 
A week later I found one in the open air, working 
alternately among the rhododendrons and the currant- 
bushes. By the middle of this month the air was 
filled with their humming. On one hot afternoon I 
counted thirty or forty of them threading the mazes 
of a single apple-tree in bloom. Their persistent and 
hurrying industry is quite fascinating. I stood watch- 
ing one the other day for a quarter of an hour. It 



May. 91 

had chosen a white rhododendron, and was working 
the tree systematically. It pushed into every blossom, 
trying even the unopened buds, and in some cases 
making good for itself a violent entrance. How swift 
is the motion of its wings, as it hangs in ecstasy of 
expectation over the flowers ! — so swift indeed that 
the eye cannot catch it — you see only an apparently 
unmoving and nearly transparent slip of gauze. As 
the bee enters the flower the humming ceases, begin- 
ning again, after an instant of silent spoliation, with 
the most exact recurrence, just as the large body 
makes its dexterous and backward exit. After it had 
finished the whole bush it rose suddenly, and before I 
had time to escape played defiantly round and round 
my head, with a loud buzzing, as if to say, ' There, if 
I liked I could punish you for your inquisitive 
temerity;' and then, with a swimming motion, away 
it went up into the sky, above the tree tops, and further 
than my eye could follow. After it had gone a big, 
prosaic fly came and gleaned over the same ground. 
I do not know that anything finer has been written 
about the bee than these three stanzas, which I select 
from the 'Legend of the Hive,' an early poem by 
Stephen Hawker, the strange parson of Morwen- 
stow. 



92 Country Pleasures. 

Behold those winged images, 

Bound for their evening bowers, 
They are the nation of the bees, 

Born from the breath of flowers : 
Strange people they ! a mystic race, 
In life, and food, and dwelling-place. 

They built them houses made with hands, 

And there alone they dwell : 
No man to this day understands 

The mystery of their cell. 
Your mighty sages cannot see 
The deep foundations of the bee. 

Low in the violet's breast of blue, 

For treasured food they sink : 
They know the flowers that hold the dew, 

For their small race to drink. 
They glide — King Solomon might gaze 
With wonder on their awful ways. 

The weather during the last week has been cold 
and stormy, with many heavy showers of rain from 
west by north and by south. Yesterday morning 
there was a dash of hail, the ' felon winds ' had been 
stealing both leaf and bloom from the trees, and in 
the night we had been within one degree of freezing ; 
but notwithstanding this we are saluted by delicious 
gusts of perfume from the hawthorns ; and more and 
more we find ourselves living in a green covert, which 
day by day, to our great satisfaction, is shutting out 
familiar landmarks and the sight of neighbouring 
houses. 



May. 93 



XX.— STILL DAYS: THE CHRONICLE OF 
A HEDGE-WARBLER'S NEST. 

May 29. 

It would be a pity if we were to conclude sunshine 
essential to beauty. If that were so our English 
landscapes, at any rate, would be in bad case. How 
often we find our grey, even our rainy days and nights, 
to be full of loveliness, and of that quality which we 
call restfulness. Nature seems to fall into repose and 
the mind reposes with her. 

Let me sketch one or two of these low-toned pic- 
tures. About the middle of this month I found it 
mild enough at midnight to sit out of doors. A thick 
curtain of cloud was drawn over the moon ; but there 
was light enough to see the fruit blossom on the trees, 
the closed daisies on the lawn, a few wide-open stars 
of narcissus, and a large bed of white, perennial 
candytuft, the flowers of which were also unaffected 
by the night. The peculiarity, even the charm, of 
such a scene lies in its contracted character ; the 
horizon seems to be immediately behind our own 
circle of trees, and the sky itself belongs to us and is 
so low that it might be resting upon the tree-tops. 

Or, again, let us take what is called a dull after- 
noon. It is quiet and warm, the clouds file slowly 



94 Country Pleasures. 

across the sky, and, though always moving, they 
never break sufficiently to let through the sun ; there 
is neither brightness nor shadow ; but one even light 
suffused over the whole landscape, not strong enough 
to strike the eye, as harsh noises do the ear, and yet 
sufficient to show all those gradations of green which 
are the prime beauty of spring. Now and then there 
are a few drops of rain visible on the smooth water of 
the pond, but they are not heavy enough to wet the 
ground. The birds are mostly at rest — only an 
occasional twitter tells how silent we are — and there 
is scarcely any motion except that of the long out- 
stretching branches of the trees which sway up and 
down with a regularity that becomes almost mesmeric. 
Nor should the beauty of a rainy evening be over- 
looked. Why should we dread "the rain so much ? In 
the spring or summer, and in the country, nothing is 
more delightful. I once knew a hard-working city 
parson, whose dream was that some day he would get 
back to the rural neighbourhood where he was born, 
and then that his great pleasure would be — what think 
you ? — to so clothe himself that whenever the rain was 
falling he might walk about with impunity. A pleasant 
fancy to nurse in the bard streets ; but, alas, his 
emancipation came only when it was too late to be 
enjoyed ! Certainly one of the finer aspects of nature 



May. 95 

is lost to us until we have learnt the secret charm of a 
shower among green leaves. How thick the foliage 
looks in the fading light, and how brilliant the long 
grass — never longer than this year — under the trees 
in the orchard ! There is nothing moving except a 
stray frog which leaps heavily across the path, out of 
one bed into another ; and no sound but that of the 
rain, until, a little before nine o'clock, a throstle breaks 
out into an almost delirious song before settling down 
for the night. 

Last week there seemed to be a general departure 
of young birds. As I went round, I found one nest 
after another deserted. The little younglings were 
fledged and had flown — to use an old Lancashire 
word, appropriate enough to them, they had 'flitted/ 
In the finest of all the precious poems left to us by 
Henry Vaughan the Silurist, there is one stanza 
which will be in the memory of all those who know 
his writings — 

He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may know 

At first sight if the bird be flown ; 
But what fair dell or grove he sings in now, 
That is to him unknown. 

I could not restrain some such sorrowful feeling as is 
here alluded to from creeping over my mind as I 
looked at the empty tenements, and wondered what 



g6 Country Pleasures. 

had become of the tender creatures over whose fortunes 
I had been watching so long. 

The first nest which was cleared was that of the 
hedge-warbler. I have already spoken of the beauty 
of the eggs of this bird. They are small in size and 
of a bright and spotless blue. I first saw the nest, 
containing four eggs, on the second of May. It was in 
an exposed situation, on the top of a stump, and 
against a paling ; but it was protected a little from 
the rain by an overhanging ledge. It was not far from 
the ground, and though soft and neatly formed, a long 
tuft of dry grass had been allowed to remain hanging 
below, as if more material had been brought together 
than was found necessary for the completion of the 
structure. The hedge-warbler is bold and familiar in 
its relations with man, and this will account for the 
position of the nest ; but I have often thought how, 
as the bird continued her long and patient vigil, by 
night and by day, the frequent footfall on the other side 
of the paling must have ' shot light horror through her 
pulses.' On May the tenth, the young warblers were 
out of their shells, but they were so huddled together 
at the bottom of the nest that I could not tell how 
many there were. All that one could see was a round 
lump of pink flesh, covered with a little dark-coloured 
down, from which there protruded two heads ; but 



May. 97 

underneath there might have been more. During the 
period of incubation I only found the old bird once 
off the eggs : but after the hatching she was generally 
on a neighbouring tree during the daytime. As 
night approached she was always on the nest. She 
became so tame that she would allow me to stand 
over her without moving, and I was able to see how 
closely she covered the young brood with her wings. 
It was always a wonder to me that they were not 
smothered. On the fourteenth I saw for the first 
time that all the eggs had been hatched, for there were 
now quite visible four, red, upturned throats. All 
birds' nests seem to me to err by defect, and on the 
fifteenth there was so little room for the young ones 
that they had to arrange themselves cunningly, one 
being underneath and three on the top. All the 
mouths were up and turned one way — towards the 
light and air. By this time the heads were covered 
with rudimentary black feathers ; the bodies were of 
a dusky brown ; and the bills began to show a tinge 
of yellow. On the eighteenth they looked ridiculously 
large for their small nest, and I said to myself, ' If they 
do not fly soon they will tumble out.' Their eyes 
were, now, for the first time, open and intelligent ; and 
they seemed to look up to me as if for help. When 
I saw them last a little green had begun to show itself 

H 



98 Country Pleasures. 

among the light brown feathers under the head ; and 
on the nineteenth they were gone. This was nine or 
ten days after they had been hatched. 

The fruit-tree blossom is now over ; but the rasp- 
berry canes are in flower. The heavy rain has dashed 
the hawthorn and the laburnum, and I am afraid they 
will not recover their splendour ; the red hawthorn 
has suffered least. Two new blooms, however, are 
out — the guelder-rose and the mountain-ash. 

To-day being the twenty-ninth, we have taken 
down the hawthorn in the hall and put up a branch 
of oak, not so much, it must be confessed, in honour 
of Charles as of the royal tree itself — the king of the 
English wood. It is on record that at one time the 
whole parish of Moston was covered with great oaks ; 
now they are all small and of recent growth ; but as 
I look up at their green leafage — green and thick as 
any — I picture to myself that giant at Boscobel, the— 

Famous brother-oak 
Wherein the younger Charles abode 

Till all the paths were dim, 
And far below the Roundhead rode, 

And humm'd a surly hymn. 



June. 99 



JUNE. 

And what is so rare as a day in June ? 

Then if ever come perfect days ; 
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, 

And over it softly her warm ear lays : 
"Whether we look or whether we listen, 
"We hear life murmur, or see it glisten \ 
Every clod feels a stir of might, 

An instinct within it that reaches and towers, 
And groping blindly above it for light 

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers. 

J. R. Lowell, The Vision of Sir Laimf ah 



XXL— MORE ABOUT BIRDS: MEADOW-PIPIT 
AND BLACKBIRD. 

June 5. 
In my last notes I sketched the true story of a 
hedge-warbler's nest : this week I can furnish in addi- 
tion one or two slight monographs on similar subjects. 
Within our enclosures there is a piece of meadow- 
land which has been left uncultured for a time, and 
is now pretty thickly studded with long tufts of 
rushes and of coarse grass. In these I have found 

h 2 



ioo Country Pleasures. 

several nests of the meadow-pipit, or titlark. I 
came upon the first of them on the sixth of May. 
The nest is small and built upon the ground, so that 
the stems of the rushes rise closely round it, and in 
such a way as to conceal it effectually from a casual 
observer. The bird is not unlike the skylark in colour, 
but is smaller ; the tail is long and edged with white. 
It is well known, and has many names besides the 
two already given ; most of these are intended to 
indicate either its habitation or its song : among 
them are moss-cheeper, ling-bird, titling, wekeen, 
moor-tit, heather-lintie, and meadow-lark. When I 
was approaching the nest, but still at some distance 
from it, I saw a bird rise and fly away over a fence. 
This was probably the male. When I got nearer, a 
second bird rose and made off slowly, with a low jerking 
flight, along the ground, as if it had been lame. This 
would seem to be one of the habits of the bird, for 
Yarrell says : — ' The parent bird has been observed 
to feign being wounded for the purpose of drawing 
attention from its nest.' The eggs were four in 
number, of a light brown without gloss, and about 
the same size as those of the hedge-warbler. In two 
days after this the eggs were gone, and in their place 
there lay at the bottom of the nest a round ball of 
down, from which protruded two small heads about 



June. i o i 

the size of the end of my pencil. On the ninth there 
were three mouths to be seen, but the bodies were 
not distinguishable from each other. By this time 
the old bird had got to know me somewhat, and 
retreated but a short distance, resting, during my 
stay, upon a neighbouring post On the eleventh I 
saw that all the four eggs had been duly hatched. 
On the fifteenth the bills were yellow, and the bodies 
much darker in colour. On the eighteenth I found 
one of the young birds in the field, at some distance 
from the nest. I could not see that it had been hurt, 
and it was alive ; but it died in my hand after a 
few minutes. It was a dainty little creature, light- 
coloured, and beautifully marked ; but the legs 
seemed too slender to carry it, and the wings too 
small for flight. I suppose it was the restless genius 
of its race : the poor Icarus of the brood. The other 
young ones, more prudent and less ambitious, were 
still snugly ensconced in the nest. On the morning 
of the twentieth, I saw that they were ready to fly ; 
and on the evening of the same day they were gone. 
The bottom of the nest was not plastered like that 
of the thrush, but beautifully soft and elastic, the 
latter quality being produced by the arrangement of 
many layers of very fine grass mixed with a little 
hair. 



102 Country Pleasures. 

It is strange that a bird should build in such an 
exposed and unprotected place. A chance foot might 
have crushed the young brood at any time, and they 
seemed to have little shelter from the heavy rains 
which fell frequently during the period of fledging. 
On wet and stormy nights I often thought of them 
in their poor lodging ; and it was a pleasure to believe 
that after all, perhaps, they were warm enough with 
that soft bed underneath and the mother's wings 
closely covering them above. In the morning, when 
I visited them and saw the parent bird chirping 
blithely about, I used to say to myself, in the words 

of the old poet — 

Many a sullen storm, 
For which coarse man seems much the fitter born, 
Rain'd on thy bed 
And harmless head ; 
And now as fresh and chearful as the light 
Thy little heart in early hymns doth sing 
Unto that Providence, whose unseen arm 
Curb'd them and cloath'd thee well and warm. 

In my notes of May the eighth, I mentioned a 
blackbird's nest which I had found high up on an ivied 
wall. The hen was then sitting, and I am not, there- 
fore, able to fix the period of incubation. As I passed 
I could see her head over the edge of the nest ; but on 
the eleventh, finding her away, I mounted a ladder and 
discovered that three young birds had been hatched. 



yune. 103 

This was in the daytime ; at dusk the hen ivas on 
the nest again, and this, I think, was her usual custom, 
for I only found her sitting with her young once in the 
middle of the day, while at night she was always there. 
On the twentieth the nest was too small for the three 
big dusky birds which it contained, When I stood 
and whistled under the nest, one young bird put out 
its head and looked at me. On the twenty-first they 
were still in the nest, but seemed quite full-grown ; 
and on the twenty-second they had flown. This was 
eleven days after I first saw them. The nest of this 
bird is deserving of notice. It is larger and more 
untidy than that of the thrush, but the way in which it 
has been dexterously worked in between the wall and 
the stems of the ivy is wonderful ; the latter, indeed, 
have evidently been forced away from the wall, and 
then their elasticity made use of to bind the nest up 
and make it tight. At the same time, the ivy-leaves 
have been so economised as to make a perfect and 
overhanging roof. 

The blackbirds are more numerous this year than 
usual. They are on the lawn every morning break- 
fasting on the wriggling worms, and I never miss 
their loud fluting at night. I suppose they are 
waiting for my cherries. But what of that ? I am 
content to take sweet music in exchange for stone 



104 Country Pleasures, 

fruit, and join heartily in the laureate's well-known 
invitation : — 

O blackbird ! sing me something well : 

While all the neighbours shoot thee round, 
I keep smooth plats of fruitful ground, 

Where thou may'st warble, eat, and dwell. 

In the green-house the large, dark, purple clematis 
is in bloom — a noble flower, some four or five inches 
across ; and out of doors we have promise of another 
splendid blossom, for the first foxgloves are in bud. 

Since the month of June came in the weather has 
been broken — a little sunshine and much rain, some- 
times with heavy wind. On the third the morning 
was peculiarly warm and still, and so overhung with 
cloud as to seem dark. The rain had fallen through 
the night so quietly that it lay on the grass like dew, 
some six or seven separate pearls being seen on each 
long blade. On first opening the window I thought 
these white rain-drops were some new flower that had 
sprung up in the night, or that the old hawthorn bloom 
had been blown over the lawn. 

I have often observed how much greener the trees 
appear under these cloudy conditions than they do 
when the sky is clear and the light full. Standing at a 
window, where I could look into the midmost branches 
of a tall beech, and see one great bough making a green 



June. 105 

floor beneath, and another forming a green roof above, 
I felt, as I have frequently done before, how enviable 
a home the birds and other small forest creatures have 
had given to them, and how pleasant it would be, even 
for oneself, to creep up sometimes and make a tem- 
porary lodge in that leafy wilderness. Happening to 
mention, in a vein of pleasantry, to my friend the 
Professor the longing which I felt for such a retreat, 
I found him looking as if I had confessed to him 
some new development in me of original sin. ' You 
should not,' he said with a reproachful frown, ■' con- 
sider these things so lightly. The least you can do 
is to regard with a serious and pious feeling the 
memory of your ancestry. In all probability the idea 
which haunts you now is an inborn instinct passed on 
to you through innumerable and infinitesimal ducts 
from some far-off aeon when your progenitors nested 
or herded in such a superterrene covert as that which 
now so fastens itself upon your fancy.' I answered 
meekly that I would endeavour in future to accord 
to my elementary ancestors a proper reverence ; and 
that I should be indeed thankful if they had endowed 
me with no worse propensity than the desire to live in 
trees. 



lo6 Country Pleasures. 



XXII.— WHITSUNTIDE : THE SKYLARK. 

June ii. 
SLOWLY or swiftly, as the mind chooses to shape it, 
the year moves onward in its round — a creeping and 
a petty pace to some ; to others a wild and breathless 
dance. But slow or swift the inevitable points are 
reached, passed, and r left behind for ever. And so 
here, in its course, is Whitsuntide — an ancient 
holiday and a modern one — adapting itself to chang- 
ing creeds and new civilisations, as even its names 
sufficiently indicate — Pentecost, Pfingsten-tag, and 
Whitsuntide. An old writer, describing the English 
Whitsuntide in his day, says : ' The house-keepers 
met and were merry, and gave their charity. The 
young people were there too, and had dancing, bowl- 
ing, shooting at butts, &c, the ancients sitting gravely 
by, and looking on. All things were civil and without 
scandal.' And so it remains — ' the young people 
are there too ; ' indeed the festival, as known to our- 
selves, may be described as that of the poor, and the 
children of the poor. 

In Lancashire, especially, we seem resolved to 
retain something of the traditional joviality ; and 
happily, too, the pleasures of the time are for the 
most part connected with ideas of the country. And 



June. 107 

who would wish them curtailed ? None, we should 
suppose, unless he were either a misanthrope or a 
churl, who had ever seen the faces of hundreds of 
children lit up simultaneously with a flash of delight 
as their Whitsuntide excursion showed them, perhaps 
for the first time in their lives, certainly for the only 
time in the year, a real green field, or a mountain- 
side, or the marvel of the advancing ocean. 

This year, unfortunately, the conditions are not 
favourable to holiday-making. We have passed into 
a stormy cycle ; the thunder has been frequent, the 
rain has fallen in sheets, and the fields are under 
water. As I write, the trees are tossing their 
branches with a wintry wildness in the face of the 
moon, when the clouds will let her be seen. Our 
pond here has overflowed all its bounds and made 
mischievous rivulets along the garden paths ; and 
even a noisy waterfall has asserted itself in the dell. 
The boys have consoled themselves by fishing — not 
with much success — and by the construction of mimic 
waterwheels. 

Herrick gives us, as usual, the sylvan note of the 
festival — 

When yew is out, then birch comes in, 

And many flowers beside, 
Both of a fresh and fragrant kinne, 
To honour Whitsuntide. 



108 Country Pleasures. 

Green rushes then, and sweetest bents, 

With cooler oken boughs, 
Come in for comely ornaments, 
To re-adorn the house. 
Thus times do shift ; each thing his turne do's hold ; 
New things succeed as former things grow old. 

Because there was rain without, was that reason 
why there should be no appropriate bravery within ? 
It seemed not, and therefore on Saturday I went into 
the garden, and made a great nosegay for Sunday 
morning ' to honour Whitsuntide ' — not a dainty 
hand-bouquet, but a capacious bunch of leaves and 
flowers that covered half the table. There was a 
branch of oak — one sees, as one looks at the delicious 
green, why Herrick calls it ' cool ' — a branch of birch, 
some fronds of hart's-tongue, the ribbon-grass for 
grace, the sword-grass for stiff dignity, a splendid 
peony for a centre of colour — is any English flower 
finer than this ? — the blue corn-flower, the pencilled 
iris in many tints, and a few classic-looking yellow 
trumpet lilies. 

Yesterday, in the afternoon, there was a temporary 
cessation of the storm, and we took a short journey 
to a pleasant village in the south-east corner of the 
county. We had such an evening as can only come 
after a day of heavy rain ; and being upon high 
ground we saw some thirty or forty miles of cham- 



June. 109 

paign country stretching beneath us — green meadows, 
dark woods rising like unbroken walls or opening to 
reveal the landscape beyond, broad tracts of ruddy 
moorland over which the slow trains seemed to creep, 
innumerable hamlets, each marked by its tower or 
spire, and, in the far distance, as a bounding line, the 
dusky hills of Derbyshire. At twenty minutes before 
nine I saw a lark in the sky and heard him singing — 
grand egotist as he is — as if he had been the very 
genius and incarnate voice of the whole splendid 

scene. 

All the earth and air 

With that voice was loud. 

It has been said that the skylark never sings after 
the sun is below the horizon, and that Shelley was 
wrong in speaking of the bird as singing — 

In the golden lightning 
Of the sunken sun. 

But the poet was unquestionably right, as my obser- 
vation on this occasion, and on many others, enables 
me to certify. 

At this particular time the moon was perceptibly 
brightening ; and although there were thin streaks of 
fading colour in the upper sky, the sun had been set 
for twenty or thirty minutes, and the west was already 
cold and grey. The bird was in no hurry to finish 



no Country Pleasures. 

his vesper ; but came slowly down from a great 
height, singing on the way and making but a short 
drop at the last. There were no trees near him, and 
I saw him waver over the meadow until he found his 
nest and sank quietly into it. So you see the lark 
' startles the dull night ' not only at its departure, as 
Milton puts it, but also upon its appearing. 



XXIII.— SUMMER IN THE MIDLANDS. 

Church Stretton : June 17. 

The end of Whitsuntide was better than the begin- 
ning. On the night of the thirteenth a change came 
and by the next day the weather, as befits the month 
of June, had become bright and warm. After making 
a flying visit to the Lancashire sea-coast, and breath- 
ing for a few hours that fine air which, when the wind 
is in the north-west, comes over from the Cumberland 
hills and mingles with that which rises from the 
scented pastures of the Fylde, we shifted our quarters 
into the middle of the southern division of Shropshire. 
And there we make our notes for the week. 

Far from noise and smoke of town, 
we say to ourselves ; and again with the earlier 
poet — 

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife. 



June. 1 1 1 

These words express the feeling that we had as 
we found ourselves really at rest in the deep and 
sequestered country — the real country, where no trace 
or hint of the city or of manufacturing pursuits re- 
mained to obtrude itself, if we except, as we must, 
the inevitable iron link by favour of which we had 
arrived. And indeed it was but a pleasant morning's 
ride out of Lancashire and across Cheshire into this 
fine county of Salop, lying about midway between 
the northern and southern extremities of England, 
watered by the Severn — the ' queen of rivers ' — well 
cultivated, well wooded, yet not without its own 
picturesque hills, and having the Welsh mountains 
running along the whole of its western boundary. In 
this direction we Lancashire people find our quickest 
access into a region of purely pastoral and agricultural 
life. 

We leave the railway at Church Stretton station, 
and walking towards the hills, soon come into the 
quiet village. There is a large inn ; but it is kept by 
a company and seems out of harmony with its sur- 
roundings, so we take refuge in a smaller and home- 
lier hostel, the oldest in the place, an ancient manor- 
house, in fact, where we find unpretentious comfort, 
excellent fare, and that kindness which cannot be 
bought \ and where, also, there is nothing to break in 



112 Country Pleasures. 

upon the rural simplicity which is the charm of the 
place. 

Church Stretton has one main street and not 
much else. Looked at from a little distance, it is 
simply a grey square tower — the church tower — a 
cluster of red roofs, a thick belt of wood and a high 
background of turf-covered hills. These hills, which are 
close to the village and west of it, form what is called 
the Long Mynd ; across a narrow valley to the south- 
east is another range known as the Caradoc. The 
Long Mynd is some 1,700 feet high, the Caradoc is 
about 1,200. 

Even at noon the village seems to be asleep. 
Hardly a sound reaches the ear except the drowsy 
crowing of a cock and the chiming of the quarters by 
a silvery bell in the grey church tower. The people 
move about so slowly and have such an air of repose 
about them, that by the time we have been there an 
hour or two, we begin to be ashamed of our compara- 
tively hurried gait, and try to tone down our motions 
to that sleepiness which we associate with a certain 
scene in ' Rip Van Winkle.' Passing through the 
churchyard and round by the Rectory — which is 
hidden in magnificent timber— we come into a steep 
lane that leads towards the hills. Here we find all 
the wealth of summer. The hedges are high and 



yune. 113 

thickly set with well-grown hollies : the limes are in 
their fullest leafage, and are also in flower. Along 
the banks we gather the two forget-me-nots — that 
which grows on the dry soil and that which frequents 
the wet ditch ; two species of herb-robert, the 
woodruff, smelling like new-mown hay and bearing 
its little white diamond-like flower ; the three stel- 
larias ; the fox-glove, already grown to a stately 
height ; the woodbine, profuse with its odour ; and 
the wild rose, reticent both of its colour and its smell, 
but none the less delicious on that account. Higher 
up, when we come upon the hill-side, we find the eye- 
bright and the bird's-foot. Here we look down upon 
a green hollow, through which a clear stream mean- 
ders. Before us is a narrowing valley, formed by 
curiously shaped and overlapping hills. Following 
the path for a couple of miles, and passing an old 
water-driven mill, we come into a wild and narrow 
gorge, where there is a little fall, locally known as the 
' Light Spout.' Here the rock breaks through the 
turf, and the green is made more vivid by contrast 
with dark masses of heath. We climb up by the fall 
and on to the top of the hill ; and there, at the height 
of a thousand feet, we find the mountain pansy, grow- 
ing thickly among the pasture. It is a lonely scene 
but very lovely as we look upon it, under a sky 

I 



H4 Country Pleasures. 

clouded, but sometimes breaking into blue. When 
we get back to the village the night is setting in, and 
the course of life there is quieter than ever. It seems, 
indeed, as if it would cease altogether if it were not 
for the silvery bell in the grey tower which goes on 
chiming the quarters. 

The next day is Sunday. The morning is cloud- 
less, but cool and sweet, the wind having got round 
to the north. The first sound we hear is that which 
has now become to us the voice of Church Stretton — 
the grey tower chiming the quarters. At eight 
o'clock a peal is rung, soft and unobtrusive. When we 
get into the churchyard the old clerk is locking the 
doors after an early service. W 7 e wander about 
among the graves, and remember how near we are to 
the Welsh Border as we read the names engraven on 
the stones — Evans, Lloyd, Gwynn, and, in one case, 
' Henry and Mary Tudor.' 

At church-time we are returning from a short 
stroll among the hills and pause at a point where we 
overlook the village. We are listening to the mellow 
bleating of the sheep in the distant folds, when the 
bells in the grey tower begin once more, and slowly 
we discover that now the ringers are skilfully running 
over the notes of a sweet and familiar hymn — the 
Quam Dilecta of Bishop Jenner. We descend and 



June. 115 

join the quiet company which is slowly passing between 
the graves and through the Norman doorway, with 
the words of old George Herbert on our lips : — 

O Day most calm, most bright, 
The fruit of this, the next world's bud, 
Th J indorsement of supreme delight, 
Writ by a friend, and with his bloud ; 
The couch of time ; care's balm and bay : 
The week were dark but for thy light : 

Thy torch doth show the way. 

In the evening we crossed the valley and ascended 
Caradoc. The way ran by deep lanes and through 
field-paths. All the flowers were there again, but the 
most frequent were the honeysuckle and the rose. 
When we had climbed six hundred feet up the hill, so 
deep was the silence that we heard, as we stood and 
paused for breath, the cuckoo calling from a wood 
down in the valley and at least a mile away. On the 
summit we found, more plainly marked than we ex- 
pected, the ancient camp of Caractacus — Caer 
Caradoc. Round the grim rocks and over the old- 
world ramparts we saw the swift, or black-marten, 
darting about in great numbers. Were their nests 
built at that great height — twelve hundred feet above 
the sea — or had they come up from the valley in 
search of food ? 

After seeing the sun dip below the great plain, out 
of which rose theWrekin, we descended rapidly: and, 



1 1 6 Country Pleasures. 

as we skirted the bottom of the hill in the deepening 
twilight, suddenly we heard the cuckoo again. This 
time he was close by, and on the open ground. Turn- 
ing suddenly round, we saw him rise and fly into a 
deep wood. It was now nine o'clock, but yet his song 
was not over. Again and again we heard his myste- 
rious cry issue from the dark retreat into which we 
had seen him enter. There was a fascination about it, 
and we lingered until we were sure that his voice would 
be heard no more. We had been fortunate enough to 
catch sight of the strange creature — strange in his 
habits and his history — and could not say with 
Wordsworth — 

O Cuckoo ! shall I call thee bird, 
Or but a wandering Voice ? — 
Still longed for, never seen. 

We bade him good-night, therefore, with this one 
charming stanza of an almost forgotten poet : — 

Sweet bird ! thy bower is ever green, 

Thy sky is ever clear ; 
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song, 
No winter in thy year ! 

The lights were being extinguished as we got back 
into Church Stretton, and the silvery chime from the 
grey tower, announcing ten o'clock, seemed to ripple 
along the street and up and down all the leafy alleys 
of the village. 



June. 117 



XXIV.— MIDSUMMER NIGHTS AND DAYS. 

June 25. 

The summer is come at last in all its plenitude of 
light and warmth. And that means for us, first, the 
definite cessation of the winter fire, which usually 
keeps on an intermittent existence all through the fickle 
days of spring ; it means breakfasting with open win- 
dows, and with the song of birds echoing through the 
house ; it means, in short, what is but a rare and a brief 
thing in our northern part of England — pleasant life 
in the open air ; the early morning walk in the dewy 
wood, when the shafts of light look wet and green ; 
and long lingering in the garden at night, when the 
' mild twilight, like a silver clasp, unites to-day with 
yesterday, and Morning and Evening sit together, 
hand in hand, beneath the starless sky of midnight.' 

The sky is not quite starless here. I have just 
come in from the garden. It wants but a quarter to 
eleven, and yet there is still a faint tinge of daylight- 
blue remaining in the heavens, and it is light enough 
to see the time by one's watch. In the north-west 
there are some fleecy clouds, which wear a silvery 
tone. There is no doubt that the light comes up from 
where the sun has set, for the lower edges of these 
clouds are the brightest. A few small starry points 



1 1 8 Country Pleasures. 

and one bright planet are visible. I could just make 
out the Great Bear, almost in the zenith, and with the 
tail pointing due south. There was not light enough 
to distinguish the colours of flowers, but on the 
perennial beds I could see patches of the old-fashioned, 
white, sweet-scented pink, and in the wood it was 
possible to make out some tall white foxgloves standing 
like fairy vestals under the shade of the trees. To 
look at their delicately diminishing rows of snowy 
bells tinder such circumstances was indeed ' A Mid- 
summer Night's Dream.' So long is the day at this 
time of the year. How short the night is I have 
proved for myself. Being awake and abroad on one 
day this week at half-past two, I saw unmistakable 
indications of the dawn, and heard not one but many 
birds already in full song. Those who have not seen 
it can have little conception of the strange and ma- 
gical beauty of a summer morning at this hour. The 
stars were all gone, but the thin moon was rising in 
the east. The sun would soon follow after, and the 
saffron colour of the day was already passing over the 
sky and tinging the clouds. I know of no other 
appearance in nature which gives the same idea of 
soft, quiet, gradual, and yet altogether certain and 
irresistible subjugation. It is the kingdom of light 
driving out the kingdom of darkness. On the same 



June. 119 

day the birds were still singing at half-past nine in 
the evening. On other occasions I have heard the 
thrush as late as ten o'clock. There would be, there- 
fore, for these little busy throats and wings only some 
four or five hours of rest out of the twenty-four. 
Wordsworth's poem on ' The Longest Day ' naturally 
recurs to us here : — 

Evening now unbinds the fetters 
Fashioned by the glowing light ; 
All that breathe are thankful debtors 
To the harbinger of night. 

Yet by some grave thoughts attended 
Eve reviews her calm career ; 
For the day that now is ended, 
Is the longest of the year. 

Summer ebbs ; — each day that follows 
Is a reflux from on high, 
Tending to the darksome hollows 
Where the frosts of winter lie. 

The quotation about the twilight, made just now 
from memory, was taken out of a really beautiful 
piece of prose by Longfellow, which appears as a 
lengthy note to his translation of Bishop TegneYs 
Children of the Lord's Supper.' Since writing it I 
have been led to refer to the note itself, which describes 
the rural life of Sweden, and in it I find the following 
passage about Midsummer which I had forgotten : — 
'And now the glad, leafy Midsummer, full of blossom 



120 Country Pleasures. 

and the song of nightingales, is come ! Saint John has 
taken the flowers and festival of heathen Balder ; and 
in every village there is a Maypole fifty feet high, 
with wreaths and roses and ribands streaming in the 
wind.' This festival of Midsummer is hardly at all 
regarded now. It was once, along with Yuletide, its 
wintry counterpart, the most famous of the year. 
The night of the twenty-third, under the name of St. 
John's Eve, was a time of great rejoicing and also of 
many mysterious observances. Fires were lighted in 
the towns and the people danced round them, and 
threw garlands into the flames. In the country it 
was usual, as at so many other times of the year, to 
go into the woods and bring home great branches of 
trees, which were put over the doors of the houses. 
This is alluded to by old Barnaby Googe : — 

Then doth the joyfull feast of John the Baptist take his turne, 
When bonfiers great, with loftie flame, in every towne doe burne ; 
And yong men round about with maides doe daunce in every 

streete, 
With garlands wrought of Motherworth, or else with Vervain 

sweete. 

On this night, too, it was usual to remain awake, in 
order to watch for departed souls, which were said 
to wander about and return to their old haunts : and 
in most parts of Europe there are curious superstitions 



June, 121 

connected with the gathering, on this particular night, 
of the seed of St. John's fern. 

The woods are just now in their fullest leaf. This 
is indeed the* leafy month of June,' but the leaves are 
already all of one colour or nearly so. If we look at 
them in the mass, we see they are all dark green, and 
there is little variety, except that which arises from the 
play of light and shade. This will last but a short 
time. The chequered tints of autumn will quickly 
make their appearance ; and yet it is but a few weeks 
since we left behind us the refreshing and wonderfully 
various greens of spring. 

At the beginning of the month I took the trouble 
to set down the trees round the house here according 
to the place which they then occupied in the scale of 
colour. Beginning with the darkest green, they come 
in the following order : — 

1. Chestnut. 9. Birch. 

2. Hawthorn. 10. Beech. 

3. Lilac. 11. Ash. 

4. Elder. 12. Lime. 

5. Mountain-ash. 13. Ivy. 

6. Elm. 14. Willow 

7. Laburnum. 15. Oak. 

8. Sycamore. 

It may be observed that the colour and beauty of the 
leaf depends very much upon its texture. Some are 
nearly opaque, some let the light fall through them, 



122 Country Pleasures. 

and some have the upper surface highly polished. Of 
those mentioned, the transparent leaves are the syca- 
more, beech, lime, and oak. The most opaque is the 
lilac. The polished leaves are the hawthorn, birch, 
beech, ash, ivy, willow, and oak. 

Cowper has a passage in ' The Task,' in which he 
carefully notes the colours of the leaves ; but his ob- 
servation was evidently made later in the season than 
my own, for the oak at the beginning of June was the 
lightest of all, and he speaks of it as being of the deep- 
est green : — 

No tree in all the grove but has its charms, 

Though each its hue peculiar ; paler some, 

And of a wannish grey ; the willow such, 

And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf, 

And ash far stretching liis umbrageous arm ; 

Of deeper green the elm ; and deeper still, 

Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak. 

Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun, 

The maple, and the beech of oily nuts 

Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve 

Diffusing odours : nor unnoted pass 

The sycamore, capricious in attire, 

Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet 

Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright. 

The poet is very accurate in his description of the 
sycamore. It is now the only exception to the general 
green. If looked at, especially from above, it will be 
seen that at the top of each spray there is a cluster of 
new leaves which are of a brilliant red. 



July. 123 



JULY. 

Then came hot July boyling like to fire, 
That all his garments he had cast away. 

Behind his back a sithe, an by his side 
Under his belt he bore a sickle circling wide. 

Spenser, The Faerie Queene. 
The fire of July 
In its passionate noon. 

J. H. Newman, The Queen of Seasons. 



XXV.— TROPICAL SUMMER: IN THE HAY FIELD. 

July 3. 
It is but little more than a week since we felt for 
the first time that we were fairly leaving behind us 
the uncertain temperature of the spring. Since then 
we have had not only an English summer at its best, 
but a summer of the Tropics. In the middle of the 
day the thermometers have been giving all sorts of 
extraordinary registers. In my garden here I know 
that even at half-past five in the evening of the twenty- 
sixth of June the point marked was 1 13 ; and so late 
as eight o'clock on the twenty-seventh, when the 



124 Country Pleasures. 

coolness of night should have been coming on, the 
registration was still 8o°. At this time I was sitting 
under a beech-tree at the edge of the large pond, and 
it seemed to me that all tL* birds in the garden were 
making incessant journeys, to and fro, across the water. 
Probably they found that their usually cool and shady 
quarters were yet burning with the heat of the day. 
On the twenty-eighth, although it was still unusually 
hot, a strong wind sprang up from the east ; and after 
this (the wind continuing in the same quarter) each 
day became cooler. Many leaves were shrivelled by 
the great heat, and were brought to the ground in 
showers by the wind, which at one time became vio- 
lent enough to strike off the heads of the taller flowers, 
and even to break down branches of the trees. 

After all, this bountiful outburst of sunshine, 
though grievous to some people, has been a great 
boon to most, and has put a wealth of life into the 
blood which will be felt even when the snows of 
December are upon us. The rapidity with which the 
flowers came out during the days of greatest heat 
was very remarkable. The purple foxgloves, the 
orange lilies, the tall yellow iris, the campanula, the 
musk, the marigold, and the sweet-william were most 
conspicuous. But best of all were the roses. Between 
our orchard and the wood there is a little trellised 



July. 125 

avenue covered on both sides with bushes of a hardy 
climbing rose, in colour, white, with a blush centre. 
These were timidly showing their buds about the 
middle of June, and each day two or three would 
open : but, under the influence of the heat, they burst 
out in hundreds ; and I observe that the scent is more 
delicious and the colour deeper than on any previous 
year. This is owing, no doubt, to the continuous 
sunshine and to the absence of rain. In the green- 
house the most noticeable things are the centaurea, 
with its yellow thistle-like bloom ; the great pas- 
sion-flower, and the plumbago — inharmonious name 
for one of our most unique and delicately coloured 
blossoms. 

The hay harvest, later here probably than in most 
places, has been nearly got in. The scent of it is 
about the house all day long, and no garden posy is 
sweeter than a swath of new mown hay. There are 
few passages in our English country life more pleasant 
than this, or fuller of healthy and delightful associations. 
We are in the hayfield early in the morning, and 
realise for ourselves the truth of those fine lines in * In 
Memoriam ' : — 

O sound to rout tne brood of cares, 
The sweep of scythe in morning dew ; — 



126 Country Pleasures. 

and again in the evening, when the long day's work is 
nearly done, and when groups of happy children make 
pictures all over the meadow. 

. Following the mowers yesterday we saw them cut 
away the grass above the nest of a poor field-mouse. 
The mother escaped, and the young ones were un- 
touched by the scythe. My boys gathered them up 
and took them home. The nest is nothing more than 
a little round bed made of closely-nibbled grass, soft 
enough, but not shaped or woven like that of a bird. 
There were six in the litter. They are curious look- 
ing creatures, very light in colour, little more than an 
inch long altogether, and the head itself being nearly 
as large as the body. They are blind like young 
puppies, but seem able to use their tiny mouths. It 
seemed a hard thing to break in so rudely and so sud- 
denly on what was probably, a moment before, a happy 
and contented little homestead. Some such feeling, I 
suppose, was in the mind of Burns when he wrote his 
well-known poem : — 

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, 
O, what a panic's in thy breastie ! 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, 
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble ! 

But, mousie, thou art no thy lane 
In proving foresight may be vain : 



July. 127 

The best laid schemes o' mice an' men 

Gang aft a-gley, 
A.n' lea' us nought but grief an' pain, 

For promis'd joy. 

Still thou art blest, compared wi' me ! 
The present only toucheth thee : 
But, Och ! I backward cast my e'e 

On prospects drear ! 
An' forward, tho' I canna see, 

I guess an' fear ! 

This morning early the long-continued dry weather 
was broken by a copious shower, the first we have had 
since the twenty-third of June. After the rain the air 
was delightfully cool and sweet. The sun came out, 
and on the lawn I saw a blackbird, not hurrying about 
for food, as it would have done earlier in the year, but 
quietly preening its wings and brooding on the warm 
earth like a domestic fowl. I imagine this means that 
the young ones have been settled in life, and that the 
troubles of parentage are over. 

We have had no more rain during the day, but the 
air has been fresh and full of changes. At sunset the 
sky was in many moods at one moment. In the south 
the clouds were cool and rainy, and had the roll of 
David Cox about them ; in the north-east they were 
ribbed and lighted as Linnel would have had them : 
while in the west there was one of those luminous and 



1 28 Country Pleasures. 

burning sunsets — the very embodiment of splendid 
power — a thing which everybody may see, which so 
few care to see, and which only one man has yet been 
able to paint with any approach to adequacy. 



XXVI.— THE FOXGLOVE GARDEN. 

July 10. 

ALTHOUGH we have had no return this week of that 
fervent heat recorded in my last notes, there has been 
a good deal of clear and pleasant sunlight, tempered 
and softened on most days by a fresh breeze from the 
west. It is the glory of the summer ; and, for a little 
while, we are the i children of the sun/ and live in his 
presence. 

On days like these the idea of solar worship, such 
as it once existed, is not at all startling. As we 
follow the sun in his long course through the sky, 
from the first glimmer of dawn to the last flush of 
his setting, and feel how ourselves and all our sur- 
roundings are overspread and enfolded by his exis- 
tence, we can understand how the ancient Guebres 
should see in him the symbol, if not the very pre- 
sence itself, of a beneficent power. 

Under the influence of some such idea Goethe, in 
that wonderful Hymn which occurs in the prologue 



July. 129 

to 'Faust,' has, I think intentionally, confused the 
visible sun with the unseen Deity. The Archangel 
Raphael sings : — 

The sun makes music as of old 

Amid the rival spheres of Heaven, 
On its predestined circle rolled 

With thunder speed : the Angels even 
Draw strength from gazing on its glance, 

Though none its meaning fathom may : — 
The world's unwithered countenance 

Is bright as at creation's day. 

In a subsequent verse there are the following lines : 

But thy servants, Lord, revere 
The gentle changes of thy day. 

And then comes the ambiguous chorus : — 

The Angels draw strength from thy glance, 
Though no one comprehend thee may : — 

Thy world's unwithered countenance 
Is bright as on creation's day. 

During the last day or two the skies have become 
more clouded, and there has been a little rain — truly 
the ' gentle rain from heaven/ falling so softly ' upon 
the place beneath,' and coming when so much needed 
by the parched earth, that it seemed not only our 
poet's apt image of mercy, but the very ' quality ' 
itself. Before the rain came, many of the trees and 
shrubs were beginning to suffer. The rhododendrons 

K 



130 Country Pleasures. 

were the first to hang down their leaves, and as they 
give us now our brightest green, we took care to 
afford them copious drenchings of water. Just at 
this time there is probably the least variation of tem- 
perature during the twenty-four hours. As there is 
no sharp line between the light and the dark, so 
there is the least difference between the heat of the 
day and the cool of the night. On several occasions 
I have observed only ten degrees of divergence 
between the middle of the afternoon and the lowest 
point at night. 

The most conspicuous flower of the week is the 
foxglove. So early as the middle of January its 
foliage began to brighten ; and now its white and 
purple bloom is the beauty of the garden. If we 
take into account its size, its perfection of form, and 
its richness of colour, we shall admit that there is no 
English wild-flower to equal it. Linnaeus is said to 
have gone down upon his knees before the splendour 
of the gorse ; and one might well stand for hours in 
admiring contemplation of the foxglove as it bends 
its richly adorned stem backward and forward in the 
breeze. 

In the garden here we are great in foxgloves. We 
encourage them everywhere. They mingle with the 
smaller perennial flowers ; they stand like sentinels 



July. 131 

behind the plots of geraniums ; we come upon them 
unawares in many shady and out-of-the-way corneis 
where nothing else will grow ; and besides that, they 
have a sort of garden all to themselves. This garden 
is a sloping bed underneath a hedge of hawthorn. It 
is some forty yards in length and four or five in 
width, and with the exception of a few primroses, 
which of course are over now, we let nothing grow 
there but the foxglove. This year the plants in 
flower contemporaneously are not so numerous as 
usual, but I have seen in previous years many 
hundreds in bloom at once. Only in one other place 
have I ever come upon so many together, and these 
were on the bank of a steep lane climbing out of 
Porlock on to Exmoor. It may be supposed that the 
effect is monotonous, but that is not so. Each plant 
varies in height and in shape, the purple and the 
white are mixed, and, besides this, it is one of the 
peculiarities of the foxglove that the bells on the 
same stem are graduated in tint according to their 
age. 

Somewhere in the writings of Mr. Ruskin I 
remember to have seen a passage in which he speaks 
of the foxglove as typifying the various stages of 
human life. The comparison is remarkably apposite. 
At the tip of the long stem is the small, green, un- 



132 Country Pleasures. 

opened bud ; then, passing down with most perfect 
gradation, we see, first, the colour begin to flush, then 
the buds are slightly open, then the development of 
beauty is complete ; next, decay has begun, the 
corolla flies off with a gust of wind and leaves the 
pistil bare ; then at the bottom there is the seed vessel, 
green, like the first bud, and boasting no loveliness of 
form ; and last, if we wait long enough, there is death, 
when the once beautiful and stately stem topples 
over and lies rotting on the ground. 

The fertility of the foxglove is very great. We 
have plants here which rise to the height of six feet, 
and which will bear, during their course, a hundred 
and twenty flowers. The product from these would 
probably be not less than ten thousand seeds. What 
opulence of life, what seeming waste of life ! and — can 
we repress the question — to what intent ? In the 
presence of such a phenomenon we naturally ask — 

Are God and Nature then at strife, 
That Nature lends such evil dreams ? 
So careful of the type she seems, 

So careless of the single life ; 

That I, considering everywhere 

Her secret meaning in her deeds, 

And finding that of fifty seeds 
She often brings but one to bear ; 



July. 133 

I falter where I firmly trod, 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 

That slope thro' darkness up to God ; 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope, 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all, 

And faintly trust the larger hope. 

Our talk about the foxglove has led us into deep 
waters. The note of the subject, however, was 
struck in unconscious harmony with the scene which 
a little while ago was left outside — a grey and rainy 
twilight, showing only that one faint and passing 
gleam of yellow which is the most mournful thing we 
ever see in the sky. There is no doubt also that 
Nature, generally, is beginning to assume an air of 
gravity, if not of solemnity. The childlike joyous- 
ness is gone. If I am asked to account for this, I can 
only answer that it seems to me to be owing chiefly 
to the deep colour of the woods and the silence of the 
birds. 



XXVII.— THE SUMMER WOODS. 

July 17. 
1 THE deep colour of the woods and the silence of 
the birds ' — these two things not only account for the 
change in what may be called the sentiment of 



134 Country Pleasures. 

Nature, but they also become increasingly character- 
istic of the season as we get further into the month 
of July. More and more we feel, by comparison, 
how delicious was the ' living green ' of spring — to 
quote that happy phrase which occurs in one of our 
best hymns : — 

Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood 
Stand dress'd in living green. 

As we look on the present sombre monotony of the 
leaves, we know that it means rest, fulfilment, achieve- 
ment — peace, perhaps : but not force, freshness, hope, 
elasticity. These are gone when development is 
complete. 

My garden-book to-night was that choicest volume 
of the year, the ' Selected Poems of Matthew Arnold,' 
and I found myself turning over, perhaps for the 
fiftieth time, the ' Monody of Thyrsis :' a poem which 
has probably a surer chance of immortality than most 
modern pieces, for the reason that it combines in an 
unusual degree classic perfection with the freedom of 
the romantic school. And in one beautiful stanza I 
find described an aspect of human life which seems to 
me the correlative of that condition in external nature 
which we are at present considering — 



July. 135 

Round me too the night 
In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade. 

I see her veil draw soft across the day, 
I feel her slowly chilling breath invade 

The cheek grown thin, the brown hair sprent with grey ; 
I feel her finger light 
Laid pausefully upon life's headlong train ; — 

The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew, 

The heart less bounding at emotion new, 
And hope, once crush'd, less quick to spring again. 

That is just what we feel with regard to the woods : 
the bounding force is gone, and the premonitory- 
breath of autumn has already made invasion upon 
them. 

It seems early to talk of autumn : but the summer 
is short, — our shortest season — and, even while we 
are noting the dark and unvarying green, we see the 
tints of the later time beginning to creep in. The 
beech is the first to show patches of brown ; and on 
the birch you see a bright yellow leaf here and there, 
like an accidental splash of colour. The sycamore 
still wears the new red leaves, which I have spoken 
of before. This tree is the most party-coloured of 
all. I wish I could get some one to paint the four 
leaves which I have just taken from one bough. The 
first — the newest — is a brilliant red, the second is red, 
shaded with green, the next is all dark green, and the 
last is so mixed with brown that it gives the effect of 



136 Country Pleasures. 

the finest bronze. So we get as it were all the sea- 
sons represented on one tree ; just as, in fact, these 
seasons run one into each other. In winter when, by 
the calendar, everything should be torpid or dead, you 
can always find some spot of vivid green which fore- 
tells the spring; in spring the winter lingers and 
covers up the blossom with snow ; in summer the 
autumn is often precipitately busy with the touch of 
decay ; and in the very depth of autumn we usually 
have a respite and fall back into the warm wealth of 
summer. 

Among the forest-trees the willow is now the 
lightest green ; next to that is the ash ; and if we look 
very closely we shall see that at this particular time 
there are a few new leaves, of light colour on nearly 
all the trees. Those on the hawthorn are often red, 
and make the spray a beautiful object. John Clare, 
in his ' Shepherd's Calendar,' has noted the colour 
of the willow at this time. Under the month of July 
he says : — 

The shepherd still 
Enjoys his summer dreams at will ; 
Bent o'er his hook, or listless laid 
Beneath the pasture's willow shade, 
Whose foliage shines so cool and gray 
Amid the sultry hues of day 

And then there is the silence of the birds. That 



July. 137 

too has made a great distinction between the spring 
and the summer. Nature may be very lovely, even 
when she is silent, but she is not cheerful. The winds 
and the waters ; the birds, the bees and a thousand 
other winged creatures speak for her ; and when 
these are not heard she is apt to become sad even in 
her beauty. Of these voices, that of the birds comes 
nearest to us and touches us most, and is therefore 
now missed more than any other. We have been 
accustomed to listen even in the dawn to — 

The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds ; 

the joy of the morning has been to throw wide open 
the windows and let in the tempestuous melody ; nor 
could the dimmest evening-twilight become mournful 
so long as a single thrush continued his song. But 
now all this is changed : the birds whistle sometimes, 
but they do not sing. 

In the wood there are some six or seven ash-trees 
standing so closely together as to make by their top- 
most boughs a continuous field of leaves. Here, as 
the evening draws on, there is a great congregation of 
finches. There must be at least a hundred. Leaning 
against one of the boles I wait quietly till the birds 
are accustomed to my presence and then watch what 
is going on. I can but imperfectly guess at the 



138 Country Pleasures. 

meaning of what I see. They are all, however, in in- 
cessant motion. They chase each other ; they flit from 
bough to bough ; and, if the wings are still, the tail 
is moving. Sometimes, in parties of a dozen or so, 
they seem to make excursions into the garden ; but 
they quickly return. Their life for the time is restless 
and fussy ; and, partly from their motion, partly from 
the effect of the wind, the light leaves of the ash are 
in constant oscillation. And all this while there is 
going on a ceaseless and unmusical twittering, which 
reminds me of what I have heard of the chattering 
of monkeys in a tropical forest. By nine o'clock the 
busy scene is over ; but two or three, like late 
revellers, are still chirping and tumbling about 
among the leaves. When it was nearly dark, in order 
to assure myself that they were resting for the night 
in the branches, I shook, though but slightly, one of 
the smaller trees, and more than a score of birds came 
fluttering out. 

Apart from these there are but few birds to be 
seen now. The swallows here, this year, are less 
numerous than usual ; and the lark is but seldom 
heard. The last occasion was on the morning of the 
twelfth. On the lawn there is now and then a young 
throstle, delicate in shape and light in colour ; and a 
few days ago I saw the yellow-wagtail. 



July. 139 

In the orchard the currants and gooseberries have 
been gathered, and the cherries are nearly ripe. I 
should note that a few heads of bloom are still lin- 
gering on the elder. This tree was the first to show 
its leaves, and is the last to retain its flower. 

The weather all the week has been dry and warm, 
with only very slight rain. On the thirteenth the 
moon had a mellow autumnal look, and for the first 
time I felt a crispness in the air, both morning and 
evening. On the fifteenth, the day sacred to that 
Swithin (bishop of a thousand years back) who has 
such a curious legendary connection with the rain, not 
a drop of moisture fell, not even that slight sprinkling 
which would have enabled the old gossips to say that 
the good saint, according to ancient wont, had been 
christening the green apples which now hang so 
thickly on the trees. 



XXVIII.— HOT SUMMER AGAIN ; A GOSSIP 
ABOUT BIRDS. 

July 24. 

To-DAY the long reach of dry and sultry weather 
has at length been broken. The early morning was 
so cool and dark that before the windows were un- 
covered we knew that the welcome rain was coming. 
It was a pleasant thing to watch the great clouds 



140 Country Pleasures, 

come labouring up — gathering each moment in 
volume, until at length they broke and sent down the 
copious showers for which we were all waiting. The 
most unimaginative person could hardly have helped 
feeling that the parched grass and the drooping leaves 
were in some obscure way enjoying, along with our- 
selves, the advent of the rain. The hot ground seemed 
almost rising to meet it as it fell. This appearance 
was the result of the steaming vapour, which soon 
after could be seen creeping like a blue mist along the 
margin of the wood. 

How beautiful is the rain ! 

After the dust and heat, 

In the broad and fiery street, 

In the narrow lane, 

How beautiful is the rain ! 

During the week there has been an unmistakable 
return of that intense heat which we had at the end 
of June. The highest temperature was reached on 
the twenty-first. At five o'clock in the evening of 
that day the thermometer in the sun stood at 114 : 
and the lowest temperature at night was 60 °. The 
sky was a clear dome in which the sun undisputed 
reigned the whole day long ; or, if there came clouds 
at all, they were only the thinnest lines of white and 
gauze-like cirri, which, even as they were formed, 



July. 141 

began to vanish away. The air was burned through 
and through, until it became an almost entirely trans- 
parent medium, and objects appeared not more than a 
third of their usual distance. The hills which are ordi- 
narily invisible, or seen only as a dim, unbroken, and 
colourless wall, were of a light and airy blue, and re- 
vealed themselves in unsuspected variety of form ; 
each fold and hollow having become sharp and clear. 
In the garden the foxglove bells were quite distinct 
at a distance of more than a hundred yards. 

In the afternoon it was too hot even to lie and 

read — 

The Tuscan poets on the lawn ; — 

the lawn, in fact, was burning like the floor of an 
oven ; but there was one place where it was pos- 
sible — 

Immantled in ambrosial dark, 
To drink the cooler air, and mark 
The landscape winking through the heat — 

And this was in the thickest part of the orchard, 

where a crooked and moss-grown pear-tree stretches 

its boughs into those of an apple, and both come near 

to the ground. As I crept out of the fierce sunlight 

into the shade of this covert, a pair of large thrushes 

started out of the leaves, and came whirring across 

my face. Like myself, they had come there to hide 

from the heat, and I was sorry to disturb them ; but 



142 Country Pleasures. 

a man must reserve to himself the right to lie under 
his own trees ; and besides I wanted to share the re- 
treat with them in a friendly way, and not to drive 
them out I suppose they found no other place 
suit them so well, for they came back cautiously three 
or four times, flitting from tree to tree, but finding a 
strange biped still in possession, to my disappoint- 
ment, they always flew away again. The bees being 
bolder, or less observant, kept on buzzing round my 
head ; and I had occupation enough in watching their 
motions, and in observing the changes on the grass, as 
the leaves were gently moved by some faint breeze. 
Now and then there would also come past the eye a 
delicate seed of dandelion, floating along like a fairy 
parachute. 

When the sun got lower, I went round to the pond. 
There was now a little breeze — at least in this place 
— and the beech, under which I was sitting, seemed 
to make an effort, each now and then, to bring the tip 
of its longest bough into contact with the water. 
The pigeons, attracted by the coolness, were sweeping, 
in a very unusual manner, backward and forward over 
the pond. They got as near as they could, but were 
afraid to touch the water. At length one of them, 
after many attempts and much dexterous flying, 
managed to give his legs a bath, drawing them 



July, 143 

through the water as he darted along. He was 
evidently proud of the feat, and perhaps none the less 
because the other birds, though they often tried, were 
unable to accomplish the same thing. 

During this hot weather the ducks seemed to have 
a fine time of it. They were on the pond all day : 
and, I should think, for most of the night. Generally 
they were occupied in swimming quietly round the 
shady edge, and in catching certain flies which are to 
be found in the interstices of an old brick embank- 
ment : but occasionally they varied the monotony of 
this proceeding by turning up their tails and bobbing 
under the water in that ungraceful and laughable 
fashion which is one of their peculiarities. 

We have had much amusement lately in watching 
a young brood of ducklings which have been hatched 
by an old and very large Dorking hen. Of course 
the young ones got on the pond, and the hen was in 
a dilemma. She could not join them, and she could 
neither coax nor frighten them off again ; and so, 
while they went skimming about like little balls of 
down, she was reduced to following them round the 
edge, making her way through the bushes and over 
the stones as well as she could. Once I saw her, in a 
fit of desperation, dash on to the water after them, 
neck or nothing. I ran for a plank to rescue her ; 



144 Country Pleasures. 

but before I could get back she had managed, half 
swimming half flying, to regain the bank, although in 
a sadly wet and draggled condition. When six o'clock 
in the evening came, nature and habit were generally 
too much for her. After watching sedulously all the day, 
she would then turn sorrowfully away, and make for her 
perch in the hen-house, leaving the young prodigals 
to continue their vagaries alone, and wondering, no 
doubt, why she should have been cursed with such an 
incomprehensible and erratic brood. These young 
ducks were evidently of a sportive turn, and seemed 
to have a sense of humour, for one evening I found 
that the half-dozen of them had got on to two small 
strips of wood which were being driven by the wind 
up and down the pond. The thing was inimitably 
grotesque. They jumped into the water and scram- 
bled back again ; they ran round the edges of their 
rafts ; they erected their bodies so that their two little, 
budding wings looked like arms ; they jostled each 
other about ; and, altogether, behaved just as I have 
seen my boys do when bathing in the same pond. 

But I must bring my record of this hot day to a 
close, and I may as well finish among the birds. A 
little after midnight, when the half moon was rising, I 
could see the outline of the pea-hen as she perched 
on the highest point of one of the highest gables 



July. 145 

about the house. I was startled at first, for she was 
perfectly still, and looked like a gothic finial carved 
in stone. She is a wise bird, and had made her roost 
where any cooling wind which might happen to be 
abroad would be sure to reach her. 



XXIX.— THE OLD-FASHIONED GARDEN. 

July 31. 
In a quaint little book called ' The Household of 
Sir Thomas More,' there is a passage on flowers and 
gardens which I must venture to quote in full. I do 
this because, in the first place, it happens to hint at 
the kind of garden which I myself most affect ; and 
second, because it sets forth so well that old feeling 
with regard to flowers — fond, credulous, superstitious 
perhaps — which, although in these modern days we 
cannot pretend to entertain it ourselves, we are most 
of us pleased to hear of in our ancestors. The truth 
is I have been seeking opportunity to make this quo- 
tation, and I imagine the reader will thank me for 
making it : — 

' Landing at Fulliam, we had a brave Ramble 
thro' the Meadows. Erasmus, noting the poor Chil- 
dren a-gathering the Dandelion and Milk-thistle for 
the Herb-market, was avised to speak of forayn 

L 



146 Country Pleasures. 

Herbes and theire Uses, bothe for Food and Med- 
icine. 

' " For me," says Father, " there is manie a Plant I 
entertayn in my Garden and Paddock which the 
Fastidious woulde cast forthe. I like to teache my 
Children the Uses of common Things — to know, for 
Instance, the Uses of the Flowers and Weeds that 
grow in our Fields and Hedges. Manie a poor 
Knave's Pottage woulde be improved, if he were 
skilled in the Properties of the Burdock and Purple 
Orchis, Lady's-smock, Brook-lime, and Old Man's 
Pepper. The Roots of Wild Succory and Water 
Arrow-head mighte agreeablie change his Lenten 
Diet ; and Glasswort afford him a Pickle for his 
Mouthfulle of Salt-meat. Then, there are Cresses and 
Wood-sorrel to his Breakfast, and Salep for his hot 
evening Mess. For his Medicine, there is Herb- 
twopence, that will cure a hundred Ills ; Camomile, 
to lull a raging Tooth ; and the Juice of Buttercup 
to cleare his Head by sneezing. Vervain cureth 
Ague ; and Crowfoot affords the leaste painfulle of 
Blisters. St. Anthony Turnip is an Emetic ; Goose- 
grass sweetens the blood ; Wood-ruffe is good for the 
Liver ; and Bindweed hath nigh as much Virtue as 
the forayn Scammony. Pimpernel promoteth 
Laughter ; and Poppy, Sleep ; Thyme giveth pleasant 



July. 147 

dreams ; and an Ashen Branch drives evil Spirits 
from the Pillow. As for Rosemarie, I let it run alle 
over my Garden Walls, not onlie because my Bees love 
it, but because 'tis the Herb sacred to Remembrance, 
and, therefore, to Friendship, whence a Sprig of it 
hath a dumb Language that maketh it the chosen 
Emblem at our Funeral Wakes, and in our Buriall 
Grounds. Howbeit, I am a Schoolboy prating in 
Presence of his Master, for here is John Clement at 
my Elbow, who is the best Botanist and Herbalist of 
us all." ' 

1 Manie a Plant which the Fastidious woulde cast 
forthe ' — that is the point. We are too apt to judge 
of flowers, as we do of men, by their great names, or 
by some exterior and vulgar quality ; or we like them 
because they are the fashion, and not by virtue of 
their own intrinsic sweetness and beauty. I have no 
wish to depreciate the splendid and ingenious produc- 
tions of the modern florist, or to deny that a trim 
garden is a source of pleasure to me ; but I like the 
old-fashioned flowers best, and 'a careless order'd 
garden,' in which even what we are pleased to call 
' weeds ' may be allowed to grow without breaking the 
harmony of the place, is what I care for most. 

It is said that a garden should always be considered 
simply and wholly as a work of art, and should not 



148 Country Pleasures. 

be made to look like nature. That is true enough. 
Nothing, indeed, can be in worse taste than the land- 
scape-gardener's imitations of Nature. But there is 
another plan. If your garden be large enough you 
can let Nature have her own way in certain parts of 
it. This takes time, but the result is eminently 
delightful. For the most part you have only to stand 
aside and watch. If anything at all be done it should 
only be a little judicious pruning — accomplished in 
such a way that it need not be observed — and 
the blending by unobtrusive gradations of the artifi- 
cial with the natural. I well remember how skilfully 
this was done in that ' careless order'd garden ' of the 
present laureate, at Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, 

where — 

Groves of pine on either hand, 
To break the blast of winter, stand ; 
And farther on, the hoary Channel 
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand. 

And, curiously enough, the only other garden which 
I invariably think of in this connection is that of 
Tennyson's predecessor. However it may be to-day, 
I know that thirty years ago that which struck me 
most at Rydal Mount, and which appeared to me its 
greatest charm, was this union of the garden and the 
wilderness. You passed almost imperceptibly from 
the trim parterre to the noble wood ; and from the 



July, 149 

narrow, green vista to that wide sweep of lake and 
mountain which made up one of the finest landscapes 
in England. Nor could you doubt that this unusual 
combination was largely the result of the poet's own 
care and arrangement. He had the faculty for such 
work. Mr. Justice Coleridge, speaking of him in 1836, 
said : ' Wordsworth combined, beyond any man with 
whom I ever met, the unsophisticated delight in the 
beauties of nature with a somewhat artistic skill in 
developing the sources and conditions of them. . . . 
His own little grounds afforded a beautiful specimen 
of his skill in this latter respect ; and it was curious 
to see how he had imparted the same faculty in some 
measure to his gardener.' 

We need not therefore be so much afraid of weeds 
in the garden. Only give them their own province. 
We shall then soon learn how much may be gained 
by simply letting things alone. Here, for instance, 
is a remote path where I often come and sit Behind 
a rude wooden seat there is a stony bank, which is 
now covered with wild and luxuriant vegetation. 
There is the curious horsetail, looking like a miniature 
forest of pines ; some sword-like leaves of the iris ; a 
low bush of holly ; a patch of green moss ; some 
bright tufts of clover ; a few rushes, and, best of all, 
the great leaves of the coltsfoot, perfect in form and 



150 Country Pleasures. 

although so common, delicately soft in colour. 
Observe how the green turns to a shade of purple 
where the veins run into the stem ; and how beautiful 
is the white colour on the under side of the leaf. On 
this rough and uncultured bank there is loveliness 
enough for many a long visit. And then if I walk 
towards the wood I find the path soft and green even 
in this dry weather ; and all around are wild flowers 
and plants despised by some but beautiful enough to 
me. The white-rayed chrysanthemum ; the loose- 
strife ; the little bird's-foot : the yellow vetchling : 
the ranunculus in many varieties ; the lesser willow- 
herb, the opened capsules of which are now thickly 
covered with downy seeds ; that great willow-herb, 
which children call ' apple-pie ; ' tall purple thistles, 
ragged and weird in outline ; many grasses, green 
and silvery grey, each one of which is a study in 
itself ; and, most conspicuous of all, the great docks 
and sorrels, the very pictures of rude and vigorous 
life, and yet not ungraceful, crowned, as they now are, 
with their reddish-brown spikes of bloom. It needs 
only one ray of sunset to transform these into mag- 
nificent flowers. 

By this time I have got round to the old English 
flower-bed, where only perennials with an ancient 
ancestry are allowed to grow. Here there is always 



July. 151 

delight ; and I should be sorry to exchange its sweet 
flowers for any number of cartloads of scentless bed- 
ding-plants, mechanically arranged and ribbon-bor- 
dered. This bed is from fifty to sixty yards long, and 
three or four yards in width. A thorn hedge divides 
it from the orchard. In spring the apple bloom hangs 
over, and now we see in the background the apples 
themselves. The plants still in flower are the dark 
blue monkshood, which is seven feet high ; the spiked- 
veronica ; the meadow-sweet or queen-of-the-meadow ; 
the ladies-mantle, and the evening-primrose. This 
last may be regarded as the characteristic plant of the 
season. The flowers open about seven o'clock, and, as 
the twilight deepens, they gleam like pale lamps and 
harmonise wonderfully with the colour of the sky. On 
this bed I read the history of the year. Here were 
the first snowdrops ; here came the crocuses, the 
daffodils, the blue gentians, the columbines, the great 
globed peonies, and last the lilies and the roses. 

Autumn now draws on apace. The brownest 
trees are the beech and the sycamore ; the greenest 
are the ash, the willow, and the brave elder. On the 
wall of the house the fragrant jessamine — Milton's 
' pale jessamine ' — has just opened its white, starry 
flowers, and the scent is wafted through the window 
in a morning-. 



152 Country Pleasures. 

The weather this week has been dry again, but 
without excessive heat, the wind being generally in 
the north-west. This wind, probably from its fresh- 
ness or from some association, always suggests to me 
the neighbourhood of the sea ; and I remember that 
before I write my next notes I shall have exchanged 
the narrow though beautiful limits of the garden for 
the wild coast of Arran. 



August. 153 



AUGUST. 

I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea 
Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come ? 
Am I not always here, thy summer home ? 
Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve ? 
My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, 
My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath ? 
Was ever building like my terraces ? 
Was ever couch magnificent as mine ? 
Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn 
A little hut suffices like a town. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sea-Shore. 

XXX.— ON THE COAST OF ARRAN : WILD 
FLOWERS AND THE FIRST ASPECT. 

Corrie : August 6. 

THIS morning has brought round a not unwelcome 
change in the weather. During the night there 
has been much heavy rain, coming not before it was 
wanted on the burnt pastures and the dusty roads. 
There must have been wind also, for very early the 
sea was what the fisher-folk call ' heavy,' and the 
waves were flinging about and breaking themselves 
to pieces on the rocks as if they still felt the agony 
of some trouble which itself had passed away. Now 



1 54 Country Pleasures. 

the water is calmer, and is only weltering about in a 
lazy and exhausted manner. There is a light wind 
from the south-east ; and though the sky is all grey 
and clouded, we feel that before long there will be 
sunshine abroad again. 

It is just the morning for rest. How far away, 
how alien to all that we see, seems now to us the 
' fitful fever,' and turmoil of life ! We are trying to 
persuade ourselves that idleness is a virtue, and have 
almost succeeded. And why should we go hurrying 
up and down ? The sea is before us ; the mountains 
are behind ; what more do we need ? Why, even, 
should we succumb to the desire to take ship and sail 
away farther and farther into the wild North ? It is 
surely enough to be here. 

One of the first things one has to do when absent 
on a long vacation is to find a point of pleasant con- 
tact between the old home and the new. Life loses 
half its charm to me when it is robbed of that quality 
which we call continuity. To-day is but a poor thing 
if it be not at once dependent upon yesterday, and 
contributory to to-morrow. As Nature is said, from 
the scientific side, to abhor a vacuum, so from the 
aesthetic side she revolts more than at anything else 
against any violent breach of continuity. The hiatus 
is that which she can least of all endure. It was 



August. 155 



this feeling, no doubt, which lay at the root of the 

poet's desire — 

And I could wish my days to be 
Bound each to each by natural piety 

Be the bond what it may — whether ' natural piety/ 
or some other bond — those days are certainly the 
happiest which are ' bound each to each,' and that 
life is the most undesirable which is made up of iso- 
lated and incongruous sections. 

And this point of contact we find chiefly in the 
wild-flowers. Many things here are more beautiful 
than at home ; — 

The sunshine in the happy glens is fair, 
And by the sea, and in the brakes. 
The grass is cool, the sea-side air 
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain-flowers 
More virginal and sweet than ours. 

They may be sweeter, but they are none the less the 
same. In the thicket behind the garden here the 
wild bramble trails its prickly stem and its white 
flowers up and down, just as it is doing now in the 
thorn-hedge above the foxglove bed in our own 
garden far away ; and as we ascend the lower and 
pastoral slopes of the mountain, we see all our old 
favourites — the brilliant dandelion ; the little red- 
tipped bird's-foot ; the delicate eye-bright ; the blue 
campanula swinging its airily hung bells in every 



1 56 Country Pleasures, 

faint breeze ; and the daisy, with its yellow disk and 
its white rays reduced to one-fourth their usual size, 
but brighter than ever — a perfect diamond in the 
green pasture. I think I notice that the higher we 
climb, the smaller, and at the same time the more 
vivid in colour, do all the flowers become. And then 
in the hedges there are herb-robert, and meadow- 
sweet, and yarrow, and willow-herb, and the white 
convolvulus, of which in the garden at home we have 
a hundred times too much, gadding up and down as 
it does in all places where it has never been asked to 
grow. Those who think of these northerly shores as 
being sterile would wonder to find so many flowers 
quite close to the sea. At the edge of a wood only 
a few yards from the water, and where the salt spray 
itself must often fall, there are diminutive rose-bushes 
now covered with ripe berries ; the wild chrysan- 
themum ; the purple vetch ; the woodruff, tiny in 
size, but sweet as ever ; and even the dainty forget- 
me-not ; while the woodbine festoons the trees, 
climbing up them to a height of twenty feet. There 
is one other connecting link which I must not omit 
to mention. The last bird which we saw on the lawn 
at home was the merry little pied-wagtail ; and here, 
after the gulls, I find him, to my surprise, the most 
prominent of feathered creatures. How could I help 



August. 157 

taking off my cap to him as to an old friend ? He is 
very tame, and spends his time hopping busily about 
among the sea-weed ; or shaking his black-and-white 
tail on a sandy patch of grass in front of the door, 
where he comes to look for chance crumbs. 

The Island of Arran lies in the Estuary of the 
Clyde between Cantire and the mainland. It is 
reached by steamer from Glasgow, or by a shorter 
sea passage from the grimy port of Ardrossan. The 
former route is circuitous but beautiful ; by the latter 
you sail straight upon the island and are quickly 
there. If the day be hazy it will seem, as you come 
near, only a wild cloud among other clouds ; then the 
fair green fields take shape and colour ; and, as the 
vessel comes near the land, you are astounded by the 
unexpected size and form of the mountains, which 
seem to rise upon you from behind the shores. If the 
air be clear you see the whole twenty miles' length of 
the island from a great distance, and at one view — a 
mass of blue mountains, every rib of which seems 
sharp and distinct. But best of all is to come upon 
it in stormy weather. Then, keeping your footing as 
best you may on the rolling deck of the steamer, and 
with the rain streaming into your eyes, you look out, 
as you are told, and when but a few strokes of the 
paddle-wheel from the shore you see some awful 



r 58 Country Pleasures. 

thing — black, mighty, grotesque — start out of the 
mist and lean over, threatening you, as it were, with 
imminent ruin. It is impossible that anything should 
look more like an enchanted or demon-haunted island 
than the usually peaceful Arran does under such an 
aspect. It is worth while to go many times in order 
to catch this sight. Wordsworth in one of his sonnets 
has finely sketched the island as seen from a steamboat 
in the Frith of Clyde : — 

Arran ! a single-crested Teneriffe, 
A St. Helena next — in shape and hue, 
Varying her crowded peaks and ridges blue ; 
Who but must covet a cloud-seat, or skiff 
Built for the air, or winged Hippogriff? 
That he might fly, where no one could pursue. 
From this dull Monster and her sooty crew ; 
And, as a God, light on the topmost cliff. 
Impotent wish ! which reason would despise 
If the mind knew no union. of extremes, 
No natural bond between the boldest schemes 
Ambition frames, and heart -humilities. 
Beneath stern mountains many a soft vale lies, 
And lofty springs give birth to lowly streams. 

These wonderful 'peaks and ridges,' which are 
chiefly in the northern half of the island, are quite 
unique. They do not owe their attractiveness to their 
great height, for Goatfell, the loftiest, is only 2,866 
feet, but to their extraordinary form. Few peaks are 
more angular, eccentric, or precipitous : many of them 



August. 159 

are like huge cliffs rather than mountains. They are 
full of surprises ; and the sky-line of their summits 
is infinitely varied, from the round bastion of Am 
Binnein to the toothed edge of Caistael-Abhael and 
the sharp nipple of Cioch-na-h'oighe or the Maiden's 
Breast. 



XXXI.— CORRIE AND GLEN-SANNOX. 

Corrie : August 13. 

On the eastern coast of Arran there are two chief 
ports of landing — Brodick and Lamlash. At these 
places there are piers at which the steamers touch. 
Farther south, and beyond Lamlash, is Whiting Bay : 
to the north of Brodick is Corrie. Here you must 
come ashore in huge flat-bottomed ferry-boats which 
pull out when the steamers are seen approaching. 
If, however, the weather should be very rough, this 
mode of landing is not available ; and it is better, 
therefore, especially if you have much luggage, to 
make for one of the larger places. Our destination 
being Corrie, we left the steamer at Brodick. The 
sun was just setting behind the Goatfell range of 
mountains, and his light fell with a strange effect on 
the edges of the green waves as they rolled into the 
small and perfectly rounded bay. The first sight of 



160 Country Pleasures. 

Brodick leaves a very favourable impression. To the 
left is the soft basin of Glen Cloy ; to the right the 
wilder and yet beautiful entrance to Glen Rosa, while 
in the central foreground there are the white houses 
of the village, and the deep sandy shore on which the 
boating and the bathing goes on all day long with 
great persistency. 

The distance to Corrie is six miles ; but by taking 
a small lug-sail boat you may cross from one horn of 
the bay to the other, and so cut off two miles of the 
circuitous road. By this route you land at an old 
sandstone pier just under Brodick Castle, the seat of 
the Duke of Hamilton, who owns the whole of the 
island with the exception of one or two small estates 
which have been retained with singular tenacity by 
a family of the name of Fullarton since the time, it 
is said, of Robert the Bruce. The present castle, 
which is a fine building with turrets and battlements 
and pointed gables, stands on the site of an ancient 
stronghold which was besieged and taken by Bruce 
from Edward I. The head of the house of Hamilton, 
in Queen Mary's time, was James Earl of Arran and 
Duke of Chatelherault. He was first peer of the 
Scottish realm, and was made by the Queen lieu- 
tenant-general in Scotland. It is to him that Scott 
alludes in his ballad of ' Cadyow Castle ' : — 



August. 161 



First of his troop, the chief rode on ; 

His shouting merry-men throng behind ; 
The steed of princely Hamilton 

Was fleeter than the mountain wind. 

Then speed thee, noble Chatlerault ! 

Spread to the wind thy banner' d tree ! 
Each warrior bends his Clydesdale bow — 

Murray is fallen and Scotland free. 

The four-mile walk to Corrie is one of the pleasantest 
character. On one side is the sea, bordered by 
a narrow strip of green land, covered with ferns and 
tall flags and many sea-flowers, including the pink 
and the campion. On the other side there is woodland 
scenery all the way, and, sometimes, of the finest 
character. The trees are not small and stunted, as 
is so often the case near the sea, but rise in noble 
proportions ; and as you pass you are frequently 
compelled to pause before some vast grove of pine or 
beech, under which you see the great grey boulders 
moss covered, riven sometimes, and strangely over- 
hanging ; or the unbroken beds of fern stretching 
away into the green gloom beyond. Now and then 
a little burn comes down through the thicket with its 
message from the mountains, which, though unseen, 
are not far behind. When about a mile from Corrie 
by the edge of a stream called the White Water 
which flows from the side of Goatfell, we notice, an 

M 



162 Country Pleasures. 

enormous granite boulder, the largest in Arran — much 
larger, I should think, than the Boulder Stone in 
Borrowdale. Its weight is estimated at more than 
two thousand tons. These vast boulders are very 
common here, and give quite a character to the scenery 
at many points along the road between Brodick and 
Glen-Sannox. 

The hamlet of Corrie is the most primitive of those 
which may be called frequented places on the island. 
There is an inn, and a school, and some score of white 
cottages running along the beach in a single line. One 
of these is the shop, and the only shop — the store, in 
fact, where everything is sold that is sold. Here, too, 
we post our letters and deposit our telegrams, which 
are then sent by hand to Brodick. In front of some 
of the cottages there are little gardens walled off from 
the water. Not much grows in them, I think, for the 
Scotch are not given to gardening on their own 
ground ; but the fuchsia and the hydrangea grow large 
and bloom freely against the houses ; and in a garden 
behind the particular tenement which we ourselves oc- 
cupy there are a few roses, nasturtiums, and geraniums, 
and a background of birch and willow and mountain- 
ash, the latter being covered just now with its bright 
red berries. Above the village is a steep green slope, 
part being pasture-land and part being covered with 



August. 163 



low wood. In these upland fields the cattle graze and 
the children play all day long ; and at night and 
morning groups of bare-legged lads and lasses may be 
seen winding down with milk from the farms. This 
green foreland is broken in places by tiny gorges, 
down each of which comes a little stream. In these 
places, on certain days of the week, may be seen the 
familiar picture of the Highland Washing — the fire 
kindled in the open air, the steaming pot, and the 
wide tub in which the clothes are trodden with naked 
feet. 

Coming down to the sea we find a line of rocks 
richly" tinted — limestone and sandstone, white and 
grey, pink and brown — upon which the water, never 
muddy, breaks at all stages of the tide. In one place 
some narrow spits of rock run out into the sea ; and 
here there is a little creek into which the ferry-boat 
comes from the steamers. The life of Corrie centres 
upon this point. It is her pier, her market-place, her 
forum, her promenade. When the steamer arrives 
all Corrie is out upon these white rocks, from the tall 
kilted Highlander to the toddling baby ; and finds, 
as well as it can, standing room on the slippery 
ledges. Here, too, the fishermen and boatmen are 
never unrepresented ; and in the evening you may 
hear the politics and the theology, and the gossip of 



164 Country Pleasures. 

the hamlet turned over and over : and even after 
dark the sturdy figures are still there, cut out like 
black silhouettes against the lighter plane of the sea. 
The geologists tell us that there is hardly any 
other place in the world, of similar extent, which 
offers so much variety in the way of scientific pheno- 
mena as does this little island of Arran. In scenery, 
also, it has considerable variety, and its atmospheric 
changes are both rapid and wonderful. To-night the 
sky is one of marvellous beauty. In the south there 
are lurid clouds, which make the Holy-Island, beyond 
Lamlash, look like a mountain of iron; in the east 
the sky is bright and barred with luminous clouds ; 
while the Ayrshire coast and the Islands of Cumbrae 
and Bute are coloured with green and gold. The far 
north, too, is clear ; and there we see the great hills 
which lie around Loch Fyne and Loch Lomond. If 
I go back for a day or two I am struck by the ever- 
changing series of pictures which are presented to 
me. On Saturday the morning was grey and rainy, 
the sea shoreless and heaving ; but at night there was 
the most gorgeous moonlight imaginable — a yellow 
radiance filling the sky and falling in broad bands of 
silver on the dark sea. Sunday morning was clear 
and calm ; but in the evening, as we sat in the kirk 
at Sannox, we heard the wind howling and shaking 



Atcgust. 165 



the windows, and we had to walk home in heavy rain. 
As the night wore on the storm increased, and at mid- 
night the roar of the sea was awful. The water flew 
over the shore in sheets, and in the dim moonlight we 
could see the white waves start for a moment out of 
the dark, as they broke on the edges of the rocks. A 
few lines of Swinburne's, indistinct, and yet powerful 
in their indistinctness, seem to catch for me the 
spirit of this scene : — 

A sea that heaves with horror of the night, 
As maddened by the moon that hangs aghast 
With strain and torment of the ravening blast, 
Haggard as hell. 

Yesterday again, the morning was bright and warm, 

and after we had emptied our boat of the water which 

had half filled it in the night, though lying high on 

the rocks, we pulled about the little creeks and bays 

under a serene sky ; but before evening it was evident 

that we were going to have more wind and rain ; and 

about six o'clock I started for Glen-Sannox. This 

famous glen, which is the great sight of Corrie, as 

Glen-Rosa is that of Brodick, is best seen in the 

twilight and under a stormy sky. The entrance is 

about two miles from Corrie, and the glen itself is 

some three miles in length. Great wildness is its 

characteristic, and yet there is a certain symmetry even 

in its savage grandeur. Cioch-na-h'oighe and Suidhe- 



1 66 Country Pleasures. 

Fergus stand like great warders on each side, Cior- 
Mhor, an almost precipitous wall of rock 2,618 feet 
high, and with a finely varied summit-line, fills up the 
end. As I stand in the mouth of the glen I notice 
how grand are the lines on Suidhe-Fergus. They are 
the furrows caused by falling streams in wet weather, 
and sweep in one bold and simple curve from the 
ridge to the base. This very much increases the ap- 
parent height. The colour begins with green, on 
both sides of the glen, varied by broad and shining 
slabs of white or blue rock, and darkens gradually till 
it finishes in the black mass of Cior-Mhor — black all 
over, except for the mist wreaths and the white 
torrent by which it is seamed. The wind is from the 
west, and comes fiercely down the gorge as if it would 
drive back the intruder ; there are now strange sounds 
also, coming from unseen gullies with an almost 
human cadence — cries from far away, like the voices 
in Ossian. It is time to return, for the twilight, 
though long, ceases suddenly, and I make my way 
rapidly down towards the sea. Being alone, it was 
with a sense of relief that I found I had rightly struck 
the little footbridge by which I must needs cross the 
torrent ; and that I was now on a good path by which 
I could find my way even in the dark. Standing on 
this frail bridge with the night falling round me and 



August. 167 



the loud roar of the river in my ears, that pathetic 
verse in Logan's ' Braes of Yarrow ' came naturally 
into my mind : — 

They sought him east, they sought him west, 
They sought him all the forest thorough ; 
They only saw the cloud of night, 
They only heard the roar of Yarrow. 

When I got back into the coast-road it was just 
nine o'clock ; and I took one last shuddering look at 
the fearful glen, now filled with swirling mist, and 
dark as midnight, out of which I seemed only to have 
escaped just in time ; but in front of me the full moon 
was shining on the yellow sands and on the black 
boats drawn up for the night in Sannox Bay. 



XXXII.— BY THE SEA. 

Corrie : August 20. 

Two Voices are there ; one is of the sea, 
One of the mountains ; each a mighty Voice. 

These are the two voices here ; nor is either of them 
ever silent. We may turn from this to that, but in 
one or the other we find all our life and all our 
pleasure. 

It is often said that the sea is both monotonous 
and melancholy, but the longer we remain in its close 
neighbourhood the less are we disposed to allow that 



1 68 Country Pleasures. 

it is monotonous. Melancholy it may be, as it 
is fierce or wild or lovely by turns, but it is not 
monotonous ; rather it is, next to the sky, the most 
changeful thing we know : and by this I do not mean 
only the obvious motion and restlessness of the 
waves, but the more subtle and ever- varying alterna- 
tion of the whole aspect of the sea. It is usual to 
suppose that these moods are mainly in the mind of 
the observer ; but that is not so. The sea, like 
Nature generally, has her own absolute conditions — 
conditions which prompt and suggest, rather than 
follow, emotions in the mind of man. To feel all 
this, however, one must live continuously near the 
sea : casual acquaintance and fortuitous observation 
is not enough ; we must be devout in our attention 
and sympathetically ready to wait upon her in all her 
changes. 

We are so contiguous to the sea here that, look- 
ing through the window as I write, I can see nothing 
but the wide stretch of waters, just as I should if I 
were sitting in the cabin of a vessel ; and if I stand 
at the door I can fling a stone into the fringe of the 
tide. Crossing the road, one step brings me upon 
the rocks, and here you may sit all the day long with 
the sea-breeze blowing round you and the sound of 
the water ever in your ears. This sound is usually 



August. 169 

resolvable into three elements. There is first the 
great boom of the waves, the chorus of many waters, 
far and near, heard in one deep unison ; then there is 
a noise as of liquid being poured continually out of 
one vessel into another — that, I think, is caused by 
the falling crest of the waves ; and, lastly, there is a 
low and lisping talk ever going on between the water 
and the pebbles. On these rocks there is life in many 
forms. On very warm afternoons the white butter- 
flies will hover about you, and even venture a little 
way out to sea. Day after day I have visited a 
bright yellow dandelion which, emboldened by a tuft 
of coarse grass, has established itself in a cranny of 
limestone, and blooms on in spite of the salt water 
which must often sweep over it. In the pools and 
tiny basins there are a thousand fairy creatures, whose 
motions you may watch even as you lie reposing — 
green and threadlike tentacula issuing and retreating, 
purple atoms spinning round and round in some 
strange dance which is the beginning and end of their 
existence, gorgeous anemones and many a tiny shell, 
delicately built and cunningly coloured : — 

Slight, to be crush'd with a tap 
Of my finger-nail on the sand, 
Small, but a work divine, 
Frail, but of force to withstand, 
Year upon year, the shock 



1 70 Country Pleasures, 

Of cataract seas that snap 
The three-decker's oaken spine 
Athwart the ledges of rock. 

Here, too, one may get the invigorating morning dip, 
either where the water is cool and deep, or where, 
more shallow, it breaks green upon the stones. 

We have often the finest sea when the wind is due 
north. Then the sky is usually clear and sunny, and 
the waves roar and thunder on the ledges, curling 
over only when they are six or eight feet high. Far 
off the water is purple, nearer it is a deep blue, in- 
shore it is all green and edged with white foam. 
When the waves have risen to their greatest height 
and just before they break, I observe that through 
the transparent water we have a vision of a strange 
gulf, and of the great slabs of rock at the bottom, 
seen rising up and presented as in a mirror. With 
the wind in the south-east the sky is often covered 
with clouds, and then the sea is a grey plain stretch- 
ing away in graduated bands. It is most melancholy 
under windless rain ; most joyful when there is wind 
enough and sun enough to make rapid interchange 
of colour — black, blue, purple, and green — and rapid 
movement, without the huge and threatening wave. 
The rainbows have been very frequent here during 
the week. They come quickly, one after the other; 



August. 171 

and, when the sun is high in the heavens, they fall 
entirely on the plane of the sea, sometimes just en- 
circling- our little creek ; then they pass farther away ; 
and later on they may be seen with their ends resting 
on the water while the arch falls on the far-off moun- 
tains of the opposite shore. One tempestuous night 
when the moon was low in the south we had a large 
and vivid lunar rainbow, stretching over a heaving sea 
in the north. Unlike the solar bow it seemed to glare 
upon us as a weird symbol of awe and desolation, 
rather than as the sign of reconciliation and peace. 

With no appearance of the sea, however, have I 
been more impressed than with that which on a fine 
morning accompanies the sunrise. Between four 
and five o'clock the sun climbs out of the mist 
which usually envelops the Ayrshire line of coast, 
and throws his beam suddenly upon the water. The 
scene is marvellously joyous, and the very embodi- 
ment of gladsome life. The effect of the low and yet 
brilliant light falling on the waves, as they roll in 
with an incessant and crosswise motion, is to make 
each one of them seem as if it danced and laughed at 
the same time. It must have been to some such 
scene that ^Eschylus alludes in the often rendered, 
often adapted line, in the ' Prometheus : ' — ' The 
innumerable laughter of the waves.' ' The countless 



172 Country Pleasures. 

dimpling of the waves of the deep.' ' Of ocean waves 
thou smile innumerous ! ' In Milton there is a parallel 
passage : — 

Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles. 

In Byron the resemblance is closer : — 

There, mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek 
Reflects the tints of many a peak 
Caught by the laughing tides that lave 
These Edens of the Eastern wave. 

In one of John Keble's hymns it takes the follow- 
ing form : — 

When up some woodland dale we watch 

The many-twinkling smile of ocean, 
Or with pleas'd ear bewilder'd catch 

His chime of restless motion ; 
Still as the surging waves retire 
They seem to gasp with strong desire, 
Such signs of love old Ocean gives, 
We cannot choose but think he lives. 

The life of Corrie is, of course, coloured much 
more by the sea than it is by the mountains. 
There is some quarrying of sandstone, a little on the 
way towards Brodick ; and there are a few shepherds ; 
but the men live chiefly by boating and fishing. 
About half-way through the village there is an old 
and picturesque stone harbour, lying at the foot of a 
little cleft in the hill, where limestone was formerly 
got. Here there are generally to be seen two or 



Atigust. 173 



three trading smacks — the ' Bella/ and the ' Jeannie/ 
and the ' Zephyr.' They take loads of sand or gravel 
to Glasgow, and return with any cargo they can get, 
coming round, perhaps, by the Head of Loch Fyne, 
or the Sound of Mull, or the coast of Cantire, and so 
making a voyage of about a fortnight. Here too are 
the fishing boats and the strange-looking trestles — 
some twenty feet in height — on which the fishermen 
spread out their nets to dry. These trestles give 
quite a character to the place, especially when they 
are seen standing out against the last gleam of 
twilight in the north. People who know Clovelly 
well say that this particular part of Corrie gives them 
just a slight remembrance of that unique village 
in the West. The fishermen get sea-trout along 
the shore ; farther out to sea they find whiting, 
mackerel, haddock, and gurnet ; for herrings they go 
to Loch Ranza, or to Mauchrie Bay, on the west side 
of Arran. 

These fisher folk are a curious race and quite half 
amphibious. They should, at any rate, I think, be 
included in the marine zoology of the island. They 
like the water better than the land, and always turn 
their faces to the sea as a sunflower to the sun. One 
fine old fellow interests me much. He must be nearly 
ninety, for his father came to the island and entered 



1 74 Country Pleasures. 

into the service of the ' third duke back ' one hundred 
and twenty years ago. From morning till night he 
hangs about the sea, and is ever looking wistfully 
over the water, as if he thought some ship might 
bring back the lost treasures of his youth. In sunny 
weather he sits basking on the top of the rocks ; in 
rain and storm he crouches behind them ; but all 
the same, his eyes are ever fixed on the sea. He has 
had his troubles. Thirty years ago he lost his wife, 
who was the 'bonniest woman on the island;' when 
he was over sixty he broke his leg, and was lame for 
years ; and his lad — his ' braw lad ' — well, the bitter 
war, the Crimean war, took him and never sent him 
back. And yet he is cheery, and looks to the now 
near and inevitable end with pious hope. Like most 
Scotchmen of the past generation, he is great in the 
'Auld Testament.' He thinks the 'ministers are 
often a' wrang,' and is confident in his own ability 
to set them right upon certain crucial points in Scotch 
theology. My own notion is that most ' ministers ' 
would find him a grim and tough antagonist to deal 
with. Finally, I must say of him, that he looks over 
the comedy of life with a philosophic eye, and has 
arrived at certain broad and incontestable conclusions. 
One of his favourite sayings is the following : ' Well, 
there's a deal o' ingenuity in maun. His Maker's 



Augitst. 175 



work is varra perfect, an' a'togither wonderful ; but 
there's somethin' in oursells, too — somethin' in our- 
sells ; an' a deal o' ingenuity in maun.' 



XXXIII.— ON THE MOUNTAIN. 

Corrie : August 27. 

I HAVE spoken already of the nearness of the sea ; 
the hills are equally near. We reach the mountain- 
foot as easily as we do the sea-margin. Turning by 
the garden wall we begin to climb at the first step. 
Not that we are at once scaling the precipitous 
granite, or ascending the dark and tortuous glen .; 
but we are immediately on that steep, green foreland, 
which is literally the foot of the mountain stretched 
forward into the sea. It is one of the peculiarities of 
Arran, and especially of the northern section, that 
the great central peaks are everywhere belted, 
towards the sea, by this green terrace, which runs 
along with singular distinctness and regularity at a 
height of four or five hundred feet. It is said to 
indicate the ancient level of the water. If that be so 
the sea must once have broken upon the sheer granite. 
Immediately over the village we pause at the gate 
of a little garden, for which room has been found on 
the steep hill-side. It belongs to Dugald, the shep- 



i y 6 Country Pleasures. 

herd. Dugald is one of the characters of Corrie. He 
has a large sheep farm, and we rarely go on to the 
hills without finding him somewhere about, wander- 
ing with slow stride and peering up and down, into the 
thickets and along the hollows of the water-courses, 
looking for his sheep ; or hallooing to his dog away in 
the distant corrie. He is a kindly and open-hearted 
creature, gentle as befits his occupation — a ' gentle 
shepherd ' in fact. He knows all the ferns and plants, 
and where the rarest are to be found. He will tell you 
the names of the peaks, direct you to the passes, and 
show you how to find your way over the ridges out of 
one wild glen into another. He knows the weather, 
too ; and with a look at the sky all round will apprise 
you of what is coming. On the beach the prophecies 
are very wide, and generally resolve themselves into 
the tolerably safe statement — ' Ah, weel, there may 
be shooers, but they'll be doin' ye no harm ; just keep 
ye green that's a'.' But Dugald is more precise. He 
will inform you when there will be thunder in the 
south ; and when you may expect wind from the east ; 
and when the hill-tops will be clear enough for a long 
and adventurous climb. For two things he has un- 
bounded admiration — the great patches of blooming 
heather, which he says are grander than all the flowers 
of the South ; and — either with or without the national 



August. 177 



adjunct — the clear, soft, living water of the mountain 

burns, which he seems almost to worship as he kneels 

to drink it out of his great rough hands. 

In his garden here there are balm and mint and 

other simples ; the myrtle grows in the open air ; and 

in no month of winter would you fail to find a rose. 

There are also one or two apple-trees ; and, under a 

rough shed, there is a good hive of bees. As we 

leave the garden we see, higher up, a group of women 

and boys turning over the scanty crop of moorland 

hay. It is thin, but very sweet both to taste and 

smell. It is the one grass-crop of the year, and is 

usually gathered in the month of August, even as it 

was of old ; for is it not in the ancient ballad that we 

read — 

It felle abowght the Lamasse tyde, 
When husbonds wynn ther haye, 
The dowghty Dowglasse bowynd hym to ryde, 
In Inglond to take a praye. 

Farther up we reach an old limestone cave, the 
roof of which is thickly studded with fossils. In the 
cool crevices there are many beautiful ferns ; and 
outside, clinging to the rock, there are the wild straw- 
berry and the raspberry. On both of these the fruit 
is ripe. The blackberry and the hazel are here also : 
but the fruit is too green yet for eating. In the re- 
cesses of the limestone the wild doves build, and in 

N 



1 78 Country Pleasitres. 

the gleaming, on the solitary road between the woods 
and the sea, we frequently hear their soft and melan- 
choly cry. 

As we climb, the birch and the hazel climb with 
us : but become gradually smaller, though not less 
beautiful. If we follow the trees we shall find that 
they always indicate a stream, and where they are 
thickest there will be water. Here, sitting on a stone, 
or leaning on a pendant birch, one might linger for 
hours without weariness listening to the musical 
tinkle of the water. The trees are low, old, and 
weird-looking, and their trunks are so thickly covered 
with moss that as you creep through them they are 
strangely soft to the touch ; and under the dim, green 
light look half human in their contortions. The falls, 
though diminutive, are as lovely as if they were 
larger : and sometimes you will find a round basin, 
worn in the rock, quite deep enough for a bath. 
Wandering with Dugald yesterday morning, we 
found in one of these pools a poor little lamb 
drowned. It had been harried by some ill-trained 
dog, and in its haste to cross the stream had slipped 
and fallen into the deep water. By the side of these 
brooks, and among the boulders there is an endless 
variety of ferns and mosses, and many dainty little 
flowers. Among the grass we see the leaves of the 



August. 179 

primrose and the hyacinth, and can imagine how 
beautiful these nooks must be in the early spring, 
and while the snow is yet lying on the grim rocks 
above. We notice that the woods are still very green, 
the sanguine colours of autumn having scarcely made 
their appearance. Only on the birch is that splash 
of yellow just coming, which we saw at home a month 
ago : and in places, here and there, the tall bracken 
has already turned to red, and makes a fine harmony 
with the heather. Many of the Scotch painters 
come to Arran some weeks later than now for the 
sake of the foliage which they cannot get in Skye 
and the other more northern islands, where they 
spend the summer. 

Having climbed to the height of five hundred feet, 
we leave the copses behind and come out upon the 
open ground of the old sea-level. The flowers which 
gemmed the turf are now gone ; but there is still the 
heather, and in great profusion the sweet-scented bog- 
myrtle. Then we reach a tract of green and marshy 
land where little grows except the desolate-looking 
cotton-grass. Beyond this is the naked side of Am- 
Binnein, up which we must begin to climb. To the 
left we see the Whitewater, a stream which comes 
down from Goatfell, and which marks the best way 
for ascending that mountain from Corrie. It seems 



180 Country Pleasures. 

only a white thread from here, for there is not much 
water in it now ; but sometimes it is broad and deep 
enough to do wild work. A man was once crossing it 
near the summit, and the wind snatching off his cap, 
he tried to regain it, and losing his footing was swept 
remorselessly to the bottom near the sea — dead long 
before he rested. 

Our way is now by the side of a small stream 
which comes down from the hollow of Am-Binnein, 
and is simply rock-climbing. At seven hundred feet 
we can still hear the roar of the waves on the shore 
below. At twelve hundred feet there is a solitary 
mountain-ash clinging to the side of a grey boulder 
and shaking its branches over the abyss like a flag 
hung out from a lofty turret window. This is the 
last of the trees. At fifteen hundred feet the sheep 
are looking over at us from the edge, and we climb 
up into the wild basin — devil's punch-bowl, of course — 
which lies just under the circle of bare serrated rocks 
which form the summit of Am-Binnein. In such a place 
one would expect to find a tarn : but tarns and lakes 
are few here, and in this lies the one defect of Arran 
scenery. It is probably owing to the same thing that 
the peaks are often too hard and bare. They give us, 
better than anywhere else, the iron wall and the 
saw-edge, but they are wanting sometimes in that 



August. 181 

atmospheric softness which is the great charm, for 
instance, of the Lake Country. At the same time 
the nearness of the sea frequently makes up for this, 
and we see the crags under the finest condition — 
black and hard when the clouds are dark ; grey, and 
hard still, when the clouds are white ; soft and purple 
when under a blue sky ; and most wonderful of all 
when the blue sky and the dark cloud are mingled — 
then the colour of the hills is indescribable — deepest 
blue perhaps. I only know that if a man were to 
paint it faithfully his canvas would not be believed. 
At this point we strike to the right ; and, clambering 
along the great slabs of an almost precipitous wall, 
come on to the shoulder of Cioch-na-h'oighe. Here 
at sixteen hundred feet, we find to our surprise the 
campanula and another delicate blue flower which is 
probably one of the saxifrages. At this elevation 
scarcely anything strikes the ear — 

All sounds are light 
As tiny silver bells upon the robes 
Of hovering silence. 

We climb still higher into the hollow under 
Cioch-na-h'oighe ; and are then warned by the set- 
ting sun that it is time to turn towards the valley. 
The view is now a glorious one. Behind are the 
awful crags darkening fast, for the sun is behind 



1 82 Country Pleastires. 

them. In front are Bute and the two Cumbraes — 
golden islands bathed in sunlight ; far away to the 
left are the hills of Argyle ; and on the right the dark 
wall of Holy-Island shuts in the view. We descend 
rapidly, but not without difficulty, to the entrance of 
Glen-Sannox. We can see, even in the dark, the 
beautiful burn rolling on its white bed towards the 
sea : and we pause for a moment at the old graveyard 
near the shore. A chapel once stood here dedicated 
to St. Michael, but nothing remains of it now beyond 
an almost obliterated image of the saint which has been 
built into the wall of the cemetery. It is a sad and 
lonely place — sad, even when seen at noon, and answers 
well to that description which Wordsworth has given 
of ' A Place of Burial in the South of Scotland : ' — 

Part fenced by man, part by a rugged steep 

That curbs a foaming brook, a Grave-yard lies ; 

The hare's best couching-place for fearless sleep ; 
Which moonlit elves, far seen by credulous eyes, 
Enter in dance. Of church, or Sabbath ties, 

No vestige now remains ; yet thither creep 

Bereft Ones, and in lowly anguish weep 

Their prayers out to the wind and naked skies. 



September, 183 



SEPTEMBER. 

When soft September brings again 

To yonder gorse its golden glow, 
And Snowdon sends its autumn rain 

To bid thy current livelier flow ; 
Amid that ashen foliage light 
When scarlet beads are glittering bright, 
While alder boughs unchanged are seen 
In summer livery of green ; 
When clouds before the cooler breeze 
Are flying, white and large ; with these 
Returning so may I return, 
And find thee changeless, Pont-y-wern. 

Arthur Hugh Clough, Written on a Bridge. 



XXXIV. — REMINISCENCES : BEN-GHOIL AND 
LOCH RANZA. 

Moston : Sept. 3, 1878. 

ALTHOUGH the hazel and the birch are the most fre- 
quent trees in Arran, as, if we may judge from the 
conventional use made of them in Scottish poetry, they 
probably are in other parts of Scotland, yet the 
charmed rowan or mountain-ash, as we call it in 
England, is common enough to make it a feature in 
the scenery. And so there is a thread of connection, 



1 84 Country Pleasures. 

if it be but a slender one, between our temporary home 
by the sea and that to which we have just returned, 
for almost the first thing which caught my attention 
in the garden here was the mountain-ash, gay with 
the bravery of its coral-like berries. I think the 
clusters are not of so brilliant a scarlet as those which 
we have left behind in the island woods, but still the 
tree is the same, and the fancy runs back to a certain 
nook on the mountain side, where of late I have often 
stood, knee- deep in fern, by a streamlet which comes 
down a narrow gorge, and being myself in shadow, 
have seen, up in the clear sunlight, the waving branches 
of a slender rowan, bright red and green, against the 
white cloud or the smokeless blue of the sky above. 

Before we settle down to the quiet record of country 
life here it may be worth while to catch up a few remi- 
niscences of Arran while they are yet fresh in the mind. 
To remain long on the Island without attempting the 
ascent of the highest mountain is a kind of practical 
heresy which exposes you to constant reproach. It 
is well, therefore, to have it disposed of as early as 
possible. It must not be supposed, however, that the 
task is merely a perfunctory one, for few of our British 
mountains will better repay the trouble of climbing. 
Goatfell has two summits. The southern one is 2,866 
feet in height, and the northern one 2,628. It stands 



September. 185 



back some two or three miles from the eastern coast, 
and is between Brodick and Corrie. The name 
* Goatfell/ by the way, is a vulgar and unmeaning 
corruption, and should be discarded. Its real appella- 
tion is Ben-Ghaoith, ' the Mountain of the Winds ; ' 
or, more euphoniously, Ben-Ghoil. Sir Walter Scott 
gives it in the latter form : — 

The sun, ere yet he sunk behind 
Ben-Ghoil, ' the Mountain of the Wind/ 
Gave his grim peaks a greeting kind. 

The easiest ascent is from Brodick ; but we took 
the shorter, though more difficult, one which rises 
from Corrie. It was three in the afternoon when we 
started. That was a mistake, for the day is then too 
hot for climbing, and we found it hard work at first. 
The way lies through the hamlet of High-Corrie — a 
picturesque gathering of huts up on the hill-side — and 
then along the Whitewater until that stream — which, 
lower down, falls through a deep and wooded chasm — 
has become narrow and shallow enough to be crossed. 
Here it runs perfectly pellucid over a smooth bed of 
white stone, and, even under the burning sun, it is 
as cold as if it flowed from caves of ice. Before you 
now is the wild hollow, rock-strewn and thick with 
heather, which lies between Ben-Ghoil and Am- 
Binnein, To the left is a steep and narrow ridge. 



1 86 Country Pleasures. 

This must be scaled ; and, as there is no path, you 
have to clamber from rock to rock and wade breast- 
high through the heather. Once on the ridge it is 
easier work, and you see the long and winding road 
coming over the moorland from Brodick. But what 
is this portentous thing which, having reached the 
end of the ridge, still rises above us ? It is the last 
peak; and, looked at from below, seems almost 
inaccessible. A more extraordinary piece of nature- 
building — a pyramid of huge granite slabs piled wildly 
one on the top of another — it would be difficult to 
imagine. A path, however, is found amongst the 
rocks, and the constant tread of feet has made it 
tolerably easy. The summit itself is simply a broad 
and bare platform of rock ; the last, in fact, of the 
great slabs which build up the north front. As at 
Snowdon, so here — the ascent up what I should call 
the outside of the mountain is comparatively common- 
place ; but the moment you reach the peak and see 
the inner recesses, a prospect of bewildering beauty 
breaks upon you. For a moment all the wild peaks 
and deep glens which seem to run from north and 
west towards Ben-Ghoil are clear and distinct, and 
amaze you by their number and their fantastic 
variety ; but suddenly a mass of white vapour, not 
wet mist but sun-lighted cloud, rolls and tosses over 



September. 187 



the ridge of Ben-Ghnuis straight up from the sea in 
the west, and then the scene becomes abnormal and 
changes every instant, for the purple crags are 
apparently swimming about in a white flood, and the 
narrow burn far down in Glen-Rosa looks like a streak 
of snow on a ridge rather than what it is — a stream 
in the bottom of a valley. In a little while the mist 
is gone again, and we are able to take in the whole 
wide prospect — Arran itself with the sea all around 
it, and each little headland stretching into the water ; 
the mainland of Ayrshire ; the Kyles of Bute ; the 
countless mountains of the north from Ben-Lomond 
to Ben-More ; the Mull of Cantire ; beyond that, the 
faint line of Ireland ; and, coming round again to the 
Estuary, the great rock of Ailsa, its white precipice 
and soft green summit shining far off in the sun. It 
was pleasant to sit down in a crevice of the rocks and 
run over in one's mind that finely sustained sonnet on 
Ailsa which John Keats wrote in the little inn at 
Girvan. I remembered, too, to have done the same 
thing thirty years ago, in the early dawn, on the deck 
of a steamer as, beating up the Clyde, we sailed 
under the great rock itself. 

Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid ! 

Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowl's screams ! 
When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams ? 



1 88 Country Pleasures. 

When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid ? 
How long is't since the mighty power bid 

Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams ? 

Sleep in the lap of thunder or sun-beams, 
Or when grey clouds are thy cold cover-lid ? 
Thou answer'st not, for thou art dead asleep ! 

Thy life is but two dead eternities — 
The last in air, the former in the deep ; 

First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies — 
Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep 

Another cannot wake thy giant size. 

We descended by a shorter way. Instead of 
taking the ridge again, we clambered down a trap- 
dyke on the eastern front of the mountain into the 
hollow under Am-Binnein ; and then, skirting the 
southern shoulder of that hill, made straight forward 
into Corrie. The ascent occupied three hours ; we 
remained an hour on the summit, and were two hours 
in descending, so that we did not reach the shore 
until nine o'clock. This means that for the last hour 
there was a good deal of wild plunging, in the un- 
certain light, over beds of trackless rock and heather, 
and a final descent into the road over the wall of 
somebody's garden. 

If you want a long walk from Corrie without 
mountain climbing, you can either go south to Bro- 
dick, which is six miles away, or north to Loch Ranza, 
which is eight miles. Although the road to Brodick 



September, 189 



is very beautiful, we generally found ourselves turn- 
ing north, for in that direction there is greater variety ; 
and, after we had got wind and limb into good order, 
we could manage the journey of sixteen miles to Loch 
Ranza and back in the course of the afternoon and 
evening. The way runs along the coast as far as the 
entrance into South Glen-Sannox. At that point 
it turns inland. Carriages ford the stream, but foot- 
passengers cross by a little wooden bridge. And 
here we must needs pause, for the scene is one of 
great loveliness. The stream is just emerging from 
the dark glen — the frowning hills are visible — and yet 
a few yards farther on it will find its way into the sea. 
The water glides over granite-sand, and I have never 
anywhere else seen it so clear and glassy. The silver- 
birch grows thickly on the banks ; and, standing half- 
way over the bridge, you are in deep shadow, and 
may watch the brown trout threading its way among 
the stones. It would be possible at this point to have 
your bath in the sea, and afterwards to wash your feet 
in the fresh water. If we were to leave the road here 
and follow the shore we should come upon some very 
fine coast scenery — lofty hills, rock-crowned and 
decked with heather ; dark hanging woods ; beds of 
tall bracken ; and quiet sandy coves — culminating in 
a wild scene known as the ' Fallen Rocks,' where at 



igo Country Pleasures. 

some time or other a whole mountain-side has come 
rolling down to the sea in great blocks which are 
many of them as large as an ordinary cottage. But 
we continue along the road and enter North Glen- 
Sannox. Here there was once a considerable village ; 
but in 1832 about eighty families were ejected by the 
Duke of Hamilton. It is true they were provided 
with money and were able to form themselves into a 
successful colony in New Brunswick ; but there must 
have been great heart-burning and sorrow at the time, 
and the feeling has hardly yet entirely disappeared. 
I was told that two brothers only were left behind ; 
and that one of them, a very old man, the last of his 
race, was found dead in his hut by a shepherd last 
winter. 

North-Sannox is a vale rather than a glen like the 
famous one which runs south of it ; and although the 
hills, being less precipitously rocky, are finely clothed 
with heather, it has a somewhat melancholy aspect. 
At two hundred feet high a tall stone bridge crosses 
the North-Burn, which is here a deep and noisy 
torrent. Such streams are often called ' hoarse,' and 
to this one that term would be rightly applied. The 
wind, too, sweeps down the valley and adds its 
mournful note to that of the river. The scene is the 
very reverse of that at the wooden bridge over the 



September. 191 



South-Burn. There one is reminded of those words 
of Burns — than which there are none more melodious 
in Scottish verse- 
Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore, 

O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green ; 
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, 
Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene. 

Here the note is different, and we say : — 

Now the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze, 
Sigh forth their ancient melodies ! 

The road at this point begins to climb rapidly, 
and at seven hundred and fifty feet we reach the 
summit of the pass, and are on the watershed. For 
a few yards we see the streams running diverse ways 
on each side of the road — one east, the other west ; 
and then we descend by sharp curves into Glen- 
Chalmadale, where the prospect is brightened by a 
few trees and a tract of grass and corn-land won from 
the sterile moor. After this the sea comes in sight 
again, and we drop into the quaint and primitive 
hamlet of Loch Ranza, where there is a rough little inn 
at which homely lodging and very simple fare may be 
got from a gruff but honest landlord. There we rest 
awhile and have tea and herrings — the one unfailing 
dish, unfailing yet not to be despised. Then while 
the boys have a sail in a skiff on the short arm of the 



192 Country Pleasures. 

sea which is called the Loch, we stroll down to the 
beach. 

The place is unique and singularly foreign in its 
appearance. On a bank of shingle, which the 
geologists say must be two thousand years old, stands 
the ruined castle. The date of its erection is un- 
known ; but in 1380 it was a hunting-tower of the 
Scottish kings. There was once a convent also, 
dedicated to St. Bride ; but that is entirely gone. 
Looking outward is the bay, not a mile in width at 
its mouth, crowded with fishing smacks — we counted 
more than a hundred ; inland there are a few white 
cottages, the short Loch, and a narrow green plain. 
Then at a distance of not more than a mile and a 
half, the great mountains rear themselves dark and 
precipitous. It reminds you of the village of Wast- 
water, with the sea and the picturesque accessories of 
a fishing village superadded. The brief description 
of the place in ' The Lord of the Isles ' is worth 
quotation : — ' 

On fair Loch Ranza stream'd the early day, 

Thin wreaths of cottage-smoke are upward curl'd 

From the lone hamlet, which her inland bay 
And circling mountains sever from the world. 

When the sun has got behind the hills we begin 
our return. A sudden squall of wind springs up — it 



September. 193 



is a common thing here — and we see many of the 
boats hurrying dexterously round the bank out of the 
bay into the sheltered Loch. As we climb the hills 
we look back again and again. The crimson of the 
sunset is now over the sea, and Cantire beyond is a 
line of misty gold ; the sea-birds scream, the wind 
whistles in the trees, and, as the night falls, we feel 
that Loch Ranza, though beautiful enough, would be 
too sad a place to live in. And now we hurry along 
the ' aspiring road ; ' and, as the darkness deepens, 
we notice that first the purple of the heather dis- 
appears, then the green of the grass, and all is brown ; 
after that the grey boulders are lost, and all is black ; 
then we see only the white road, running like a clue 
through the wilderness, and guiding us back over the 
torrent, hoarser now than ever ; through the dark 
woods ; past the wild entrance to the South-Glen ; 
and finally along the lonely road by the sea and 
safely into Corrie once more. 

Other reminiscences crowd upon me ; but I am 
constrained to pass them by. Else I would have told 
of many a pleasant cruise round the Island and up 
and down the great salt lochs, beautiful under a hot 
sun and clear sky ; but to me more beautiful still 
under fitful cloud and rain, more fascinating in their 
tender and dreamy loveliness than any Italian land- 

o 



194 Country Pleasures. 

scape or seascape could possibly be. In short, I ask 
for nothing finer in the shape of natural beauty than 
that which these northern skies when working at 
their best are able to produce upon the purple heath, 
the green turf, the grey rock, and upon that wide 
mirror of the sea which lies ever beneath them. 



XXXV.— THE BEGINNING OF AUTUMN. 

September 10. 

After an absence of a month one is able to look 
at old and familiar scenes from a new and perhaps 
a truer point of sight. For the first day or two wood 
and water, the meadow side, and the garden walk 
seemed strangely contracted ; just as, on the con- 
trary, indoors we appeared to walk through wide and 
ample rooms, by contrast with the narrow chambers 
which we had left behind in the North. It is no 
wonder that in the open air we should feel straitened. 
Living for so long face to face with the sea, we had 
become accustomed to large draughts of the purest 
ether, and had learned to look round upon an almost 
limitless horizon. In comparing one scene with the 
other, we were most struck with the quicker fall of 
night. It seems to come almost an hour earlier than 
we expect it, and there is just a touch of melancholy 



September. 195 



in our having to turn inside so soon. We are not 
long, however, in adjusting ourselves to our new 
surroundings ; the inner thought slowly bringing it- 
self into harmony with Nature's outward expression. 

Naturally the first thing is to discover how much is 
left us of the summer, as we had seen it last in the 
end of July; and how much of the peculiar beauty 
of autumn has already made its appearance. A few 
white stars of jessamine may still be seen round the 
upper windows of the house, but there are not enough 
of them now to send their odour into the rooms ; and 
on the Old English flower-bed there are yet lingering 
isolated specimens of monkshood and of the spiked 
veronica. Along the walks, too, the evening primrose 
here and there may be seen opening its pale chalice 
in the early twilight. Among the flowers not noticed 
before we left, there is the perennial snapdragon, 
with its rose-coloured flowers and crumpled leaf; and 
the wild convolvulus, which, taking advantage of our 
absence, has carried itself with marvellous vigour and 
fecundity up and down the whole garden. Here it 
makes a shock-head of leaves at the top of some post 
or pillar ; there it puzzles you by flinging out a 
streamer from the summit of an alien bush ; in one 
place it has covered with fresh green, and entirely 
hidden from view, a mass of decayed docks and 



196 Coimtry Pleasures. 

sorrels ; and in another it makes a running spray- 
pattern along the carpet of moss which lies on a 
remote path. And in all these places — even on the 
ground — it displays its fragile flower delicately white, 
with just a suspicion of green and purple about the 
veins of the corolla. So much for one of the most 
arrant and uncontrollable of weeds. Turning to the 
beds where the more respectable and decently con- 
ducted flowers are to be found, we see the brilliant 
asters, in many colours, and the heavy-scented stocks, 
mingling with the hum- drum geraniums. Here also, 
in all stray corners, is the demure and sweet little 
mignonette — everybody's darling — now in fullest 
bloom and ready to be put in pots for winter's supply. 
There is, of course, a great change among the 
trees. The green, where it remains, is more dusky 
and the tints of red and yellow are gaining rapidly 
upon the hue of summer. The leaves fall softly as 
snow, and so lightly that when there is no wind they 
rest on the evergreens beneath ; and in the walks, 
when a larger one than usual comes fluttering down, 
we often mistake it for some brown bird lighting 
before us. I cannot say that the wood has lost in 
beauty since the end of July ; to me it has gained, 
rather, for not only is the colour richer and more 
varied, but the density of the leafage being reduced 



September, 197 



to what it was just between the end of the spring 
and the beginning of summer, the wonderful structure 
and articulation of the branches are revealed ; and 
so we reach that period of the year when for the 
second time the trees are seen to the greatest 
advantage. 

September therefore is not without its own peculiar 
charm, and as we feel its beauty gradually growing 
upon us we acknowledge that our modern poet's ad- 
dress to the month is fully justified : — 

O come at last, to whom the spring-tide's hope 
Looked for through blossoms, what hast thou for me ? 
Green grows the grass upon the dewy slope 
Beneath the gold-hung, grey-leaved apple-tree 
Moveless, e'en as the autumn fain would be 
That shades its sad eyes from the rising sun 
And weeps at eve because the day is done. 

We have no complaint this year against the sun ; 
he has done his summer's work well, and the fruit 
harvest is beyond the average. The orchard-house 
has yielded a few peaches, only a very few, for although 
the blossom was plentiful something later on touched 
it with blight ; but the vinery is giving us just now 
its finest clusters in fair quantity. The pears were all 
gathered a month ago ; the ' Keswick ' apples have 
been got in and are stored away in the apple-room 
on layers of straw, but the ' Suffields ' and some other 



198 Coimtry Pleasures. 

sorts are left to ripen on the trees a little longer, as 
are also the Siberian crabs. These last are thicker 
than ever, and make as gay an appearance with 
their bright scarlet as the cherries did earlier in the 
season. 

The month so far has been singularly fine, and 
promises continuance. With the exception of a few 
drops on the morning of the fifth, there was no rain 
until yesterday the ninth. The middle of the day has 
generally been clouded, with the wind south or south- 
east ; but with the rain there came a change, and the 
skies since have been clear and blue. The beauty of 
morning and evening has been very striking. Last 
night the temperature, though it had been high in the 
day, fell to within a few degrees of freezing ; and this 
morning, which is usually set down as the beginning 
of autumn, the characteristics of that season were com- 
plete. The air was crisp, the sun rose in a grey haze, 
but the pale blue was felt to be behind it ; the lawn 
was covered with a heavy dew, pearly and almost as 
white as hoar frost ; and as one or two blackbirds, long 
absent, had returned, and were pecking about under 
the ring of trees, we said to ourselves that we had got 
back again our — 

Wet bird-haunted English lawn. 

In the garden the low sun was painting the shadows 



September. 199 



of the leaves, not only on the moist ground, but also 
on the trunks of the trees themselves ; and there was 
a bee buzzing about among the nasturtiums. 

In the evening, looking west, there came a dull 
crimson light behind the ragged thistles, now covered 
with white down ; then the broad harvest moon, 
almost at full, rose slowly through a radiant and 
yellow mist. And now in the stillness of midnight 
the garden is filled with the scent of the after-grass, 
which has just been cut in some adjoining fields ; and 
the moon, by this time riding clear and high in the 
heavens, brings to mind that magnificent passage in 
the Eighth Book of the ' Iliad ' :— 

The stars about the moon 
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid, 
And every height comes out, and jutting peak 
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens 
Break open to their highest, and all the stars 
Shine, and the Shepherd gladdens in his heart. 

There is nothing in these lines which has special 
reference to autumn ; and yet somehow they seem to 
be informed with the spirit of that feeling which is 
the true note of the season — a solemn and elevated 
joy, accompanying the fulfilment of hope, and not 
incompatible with the prospect of inevitable decay. 



200 Country Pleasures. 



XXXMl.—THE WILD WEST WIND. 

September 18. 

The halcyon weather of last week has quite de- 
parted: the stillness and the warmth having given place 
to days of raw and gusty rain. On the twelfth there 
were heavy showers in the morning, and many leaves 
were beaten down ; but during the day the air cleared, 
and, the wind rising, the sky became an arena through 
which huge clouds, grandly coloured, chased each 
other until sunset. The next day was quiet again, 
and, the dawn being misty, we saw once more that 
fine autumnal aspect to which I have already alluded. 
Looking from the window the sky is indistinguishable, 
the trees appear unusually high, and their foliage is 
only a vague mass of grey ; then the sun begins to 
creep in, the mist is slowly dispelled, and gradually 
we make out the details of the scene. We see that 
the sycamore and the lime are both of them yellow 
and bare ; the chestnut is yellow but not bare ; the 
beech is brown in patches, but the leaves have not 
fallen ; the oak is comparatively verdant, and the 
smooth green acorns may be seen resting in their 
embossed cups ; the elder, the thorn, the willow, and 
the ash are also green. The last-mentioned tree has 
lost many of its leaves : they fall even before they 



September. 20 1 



fade, and come down not singly but still clinging to 
the twigs. The elm is the thinnest of all ; the leaves 
of the mountain-ash are turning to a deep purple ; 
and the laburnum is thickly covered with brown seed- 
pods, hanging with something of that grace which 
marked the summer flower. While we have been 
carefully looking at these trees in detail, the golden 
light of sunrise has slowly invaded them, and at last 
the blue sky appears behind. 

On the next day the rain and wind began and 
increased until the evening of the fifteenth, by which 
time there was a wrecking storm abroad. The leaves 
were whirled into the air higher than the birds fly, 
and more of them fell in an hour than in all the 
previous days of the month. An enormous mass of 
vapour came sweeping up from the west, and got 
lower and lower until it seemed to be dragging itself 
through the tree-tops, and we could see the fringes of 
it spinning and twisting with strange velocity like — 

Hair uplifted from the head 
Of some fierce Maenad . . . 
The locks of the approaching storm. 

Then the rain came, not in drops but in broad sheets 
slanting one over the other ; and in a few minutes 
the lanes were brooks, and the brooks were swollen to 
rivers. The ducks on the pond were like boats in 



202 Country Pleasures. 

distress, their feathers blown all the wrong way ; and 
up in the air we could see the pigeons fighting hard 
to get home. As the darkness fell it was grand to 
hear the vast music of the wind swelling and falling 
in the wood — a roaring bass, as it seemed to me, 
among the tree trunks — a shrieking treble up in the 
higher branches. It was indeed that Wild West 
Wind to which Shelley addressed one of his finest 
and most impassioned odes. Conceived and chiefly 
written, as he tells us, in a wood that skirts the 
Arno, near Florence, and during a violent tempest, it 
seems to embody in its measure — the majestic and 
unbroken Terza Rima — something of that streaming 
rush which characterises this wind more than any 
other : — 

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes : O thou, 
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 
Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and hill : 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere ; 
Destroyer and preserver ; hear, oh hear ! 



September. 203 



I have quoted only the first sonnet-stanza ; but the 
last, beginning — 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
What if my leaves are falling like its own ! — 

rises to the highest pitch, and in lyric impetuosity is 
equal to anything that Shelley ever wrote. 

The storm continued all night and filled our 
dreams with disaster. We saw the tall elms and the 
ivy-covered oak lifted by the roots, and all the shrubs 
flying through the air like wisps of straw. In the 
morning we could scarcely see the grass outside for 
brown leaves — those in Vallombrosa could hardly 
have been thicker— and there were dead leaves, too, 
in the hall and in corners of the rooms, the fiendish 
wind having driven them down the chimneys and 
under the doors. In the garden many small branches, 
carrying their fruit, had been broken from the apple- 
trees, and the crabs from the Siberians were thick on 
the ground. But the saddest sight to me was that 
of the leaves sodden with water. Your ruddy leaf, 
curled and dry, fluttering along in the sun, is not an 
unpleasant object ; there is even about it a fantastic 
cheerfulness as of lightsome old age ; but the same 
leaf laid flat on the path by the pitiless rain, and 
trampled upon by miry feet, is a lost and hopeless 
thing which a man hardly cares to look at in those 



204 Country Pleasures. 

mournful hours when existence itself threatens to 
become an insupportable burden. 

For the more cheerful side of autumnal life we 
are indebted to the birds. Every day now they be- 
come more familiar and more habitually frequent in 
their visits near the house. Two or three light- 
coloured throstles are often about, but the most 
regular are a very jolly couple of blackbirds, fat and 
well-to-do, as becomes them after so good a fruit 
season. They have both got their new plumage. 
The female is dark brown, but the male is black and 
shining, as Bottom sings in ' A Midsummer Night's 

Dream ' : — 

The ousel cock so black of hue 

With orange-tawny bill, 
The throstle with his note so true, 
The wren with little quill. 

The robin, however, pleases me most. The other 
morning he was picking up his breakfast of ' uncon- 
sidered trifles ' at the farther side of the lawn ; and, 
seeing me at the window, he came boldly across, 
without circumlocution, and assumed his old perch 
on the rhododendron bush beneath, as though he 
would have said : ' I retain my rights, you see, in all 
that crumb-pasturage which was mine last winter ; 
and by-and-by I shall claim it again in full.' When 



September. 205 



he turned up his head, and I saw his bright little eye 
beaming upon me for a moment, I could not help 
longing to break the barrier between us, so that I 
might have speech with him, and ask him how he 
had fared all through the leafy summer ; and if his 
wife had been kind or not ; and how his family had 
prospered ; and whether he was looking forward as 
bravely as ever to the rigours of that winter which, 
with its darkness and its frost, would soon fall upon 
both of us together. 



XXXVI I.— AUTUMN ON THE WELSH HILLS. 

Capel Curig : Sept. 23. 

No year of ours would be complete without at 
least a transient glimpse of the Welsh Hills. The 
habit, so long continued, seems almost to have gained 
the force of a duty, and so it happens that some time 
or other, but usually late in the autumn, or even when 
the first snows have fallen, we find ourselves once 
more among the old haunts arid wandering with as 
much delight as ever in places familiar to us now for 
a good deal more than half a life. Coleridge has 
somewhere told us that the truest test which we can 
apply to a work of the highest imagination is that, 
as we read, we go back again and again even with 



206 Country Pleasures. 

greater pleasure than we go forward. It is the same 
with natural landscape. If it be of the finest charac- 
ter — of that sort, in fact, which appeals to the ima- 
gination — each visit will only increase its beauty or 
unfold some new charm. 

As soon as you find yourself drawing near to 
the ancient and ever-welcome city of Chester the 
journey becomes a picture. A little farther on it is 
even exhilarating, because it consists of a series of 
disentanglements. As the train rolls along the coast- 
line it seems each moment to reach a wider prospect 
and a purer air ; you feel that, one after another, you 
are getting rid of all mean and smoky environments ; 
and when at length you have left behind that melan- 
choly and sorely-outraged castle at Flint, and are even 
well past the dubious precincts of Rhyl, your enjoy- 
ment is without stint ; for on the one hand there are 
the waves rolling over the wide sands of Colwyn ; 
and on the other many a little dell or green circle 
under the trees by the roadside where one might ex- 
pect to see a gipsy encampment ; or, better still, there 
are those narrow valleys, not yet backed by the 
higher mountains, to which I always think the term 
'romantic' is rightly applied — places which remind 
you of old cuts by Albert Durer, in which the chief 
features are a flat plain, neither long nor wide, with a 



September. 207 



few scattered houses or a castle upon it, and in the 
background low hills and an overhanging crag. 

The night was drawing on when we walked 
through the streets of Carnarvon. I remember when 
the little town was a dreamy and grass-grown place ; 
but that was when the traveller came only by coach 
from Bangor or by the infrequent boat along the Straits 
of Menai : now the railway fumes and fusses in its 
very midst, and the bustle in the market is in strange 
contrast with the grey and silent castle. By the time 
we passed Llanbeblig it was quite dark, and we could 
only just make out those curious battlements on the 
old church tower. The road runs up and down, over 
the open moor, through patches of thick wood, and 
past the straggling and dimly-lighted villages. Away 
to the right we could discern the familiar form of Yr 
Eifl, the mountain whose triple peaks look down on 
the strange valley of Vortigern ; and in front there 
were the hills which buttress Snowdon. Although 
seaward the sky was clear and starry, looking inland 
we could see, stretching from peak to peak, those 
vast reaches of dark cumuli which are so peculiar to 
mountain regions and which give such character to 
the landscape. At Waenfawr there is a station on 
one of those narrow-gauge railways which are becom- 
ing so common in Wales, and we waited for a train. 



208 Country Pleasures. 

It was a curiously foreign sight — the little wooden 
hut with its one pale lamp and its one attendant — 
ticket-collector, porter, and station-master combined. 
By-and-by we see the toy-engine coming out of 
the dark and hear the high-pitched cymraeg of 
women arriving from the market and of children who 
have come to meet them. In a minute or two the 
place is dark and lonely again ; and, having got into 
one of the tiny cars, we rattle over dashing streams 
and under the close black mountains, past Bettws- 
Garmon and on to the terminus at the Snowdon 
Ranger. Here finding the cosy little inn crammed 
with sportsmen, we are compelled to push on to Bedd- 
gelert, some five miles farther, which we reach about 
ten o'clock. 

Looking out the next morning we find Beddgelert 
as beautiful as ever. The sky is grey and rainy, but 
that takes nothing from the loveliness of the peaceful 
hollow in which the village lies. The river is still 
clear to look at and cheerful to listen to as in the 
old days. How well we remember being awoke by 
its sound on the first morning of our visit here long 
ago ! And the trees — are any more graceful than 
those which fringe the stream and fill up the little 
space between it and the mountains ? In the shal- 
lows of the river and under the pendent grass of the 



Septemb. r. 209 



bank we see our old friend the pied-wagtail disporting 
himself; and in the garden behind the hotel the robins 
are both bold and jubilant. 

When we start for the base of Snowdon the sky 
is looking still more rainy ; but who would ask for 
finer colour than that which lies on Moel-Hebog — 
purple, grey, and silvery green ? Looking back we 
see the narrow gate of Aberglaslyn, dark and wild ; 
and beyond it a gleam of sunlight towards the sea at 
Traeth-Mawr. After retracing our steps for about 
two miles along the road traversed on the previous 
night, we turn aside through the meadows towards the 
farm of Ffridd-Uchaf. By this time the rain has begun, 
and we take shelter in the little farm. As usual, there 
is a grave and yet a kindly welcome, and a seat for 
us on the snug oak settle in the nook underneath the 
broad chimney. An iron pot swinging over the fire 
contains the frugal midday meal. The household 
consists of a man and his wife, their two boys, and 
three or four dogs, one of which is a fine foxhound. 
What a lonely and self-contained life these people 
lead ; a life, too, in which gloom and hardship must 
largely prevail ! It is no wonder that their faces 
should be so sad and impassive, and that their high 
tones of voice, half querulous, half mournful, should 
sound to a stranger more like the echo of speech than 

P 



2io Country Pleasures. 



speech itself. The roof of the principal room, or 
kitchen, showed, as is common, the bare and smoke- 
dried rafters ; and it was curious to note how these 
were used for holding, by shelf and nail and cord, all 
the necessaries of the house. There was bacon, and 
dried mutton, and salt beef ; balls of home-spun wool ; 
the skin-bag for curdling milk ; the shears for sheep- 
shearing; sticks, hats, jugs, cooking utensils and bundles 
of rush-pith for making the winter candles. 

Finding that the rain was not likely to cease, we 
took some refreshment with the good people and 
started again upon our journey. Our object was to 
cross over the highest peak of Snowdon ; and from 
the farm we made straight up the mountain by one 
of the spurs called Llechog. The streams were all 
roaring in flood, and the ground marshy and barren ; 
the only flowers surviving were the scabious and the 
little tormentil ; but there was beauty of a wild kind 
when the wet rocks gleamed in the pale sunlight 
which sometimes wandered down through the rain. 
As we climbed we saw beneath us Llyn Cwellyn and 
Llyn-y-Gader by the Beddgelert road ; and higher still 
the entrance to the Vale of Nantlle, and the two lakes 
beyond ; but after that all the distant view was lost in 
the mist, which now, at the height of fifteen hundred 
feet, gathered closely round us, and made our journey 
merely a passage from one contracted circle to another. 



September. 2 1 1 



Although we ceased to have any wide prospect, it was 
not long before we obtained one which was of the 
rarest sublimity. The track lies close by the edge of 
Cwm-y-Clogwyn, and it is hardly possible to conceive 
precipices more awful than these are on a wild 
and stormy day. Standing on the grassy edge you 
see both below and above you the bare, black rocks 
— hideously black — shining in the rain with a 
treacherous gleam and only one or two degrees from 
the sheer perpendicular. Here and there some jagged 
points seem to invite you to self-martyrdom, and the 
eye follows them with horror for some two or three 
hundred feet and then all is lost in boiling mist, 
the bottom of the Cwm, with its three or four tarns, 
being quite invisible. Such a place is the very Edge 
of Death, and realises for you the dreadful side of 
mountain scenery. It is no wonder that in the 
ancient time some supernatural Power was supposed 
to haunt these wild crags and to influence the minds 
of those who remained long amongst them ; nor even 
yet is that influence wholly lost, for in a certain sense 
they still convey the inspiration which is akin to 
terror :— 

They fabled not, thy sons, who told 

Of the dread power, enshrined 
Within thy cloudy mantle's fold 

And on thy rushing wind ! 



212 Country Pleasures. 

It shadow'd o'er thy silent height, 

It fill'd thy chainless air, 
Deep thoughts of majesty and might 

For ever breathing there. 

Nor hath it fled ! the awful spell 

Yet holds unbroken sway, 
As when on that wild rock it fell 

Where Merddin Emrys lay ! 

From this point there is some steep zigzag climb- 
ing along Clawdd-Coch. Then we pass over the 
fearful-looking ridge of Bwlch-y-Maen and see, at last, 
hanging above us in the mist, the cairn of stones and 
the frail huts which crown the last summit. 



October. 2 1 3 



OCTOBER. 

October's gold is dim — the forests rot, 

The weary rain falls ceaseless — while the day 

Is wrapped in damp. In mire of village way 

The hedgerow leaves are stamped ; and, all forgot, 

The broodless nest sits visible in the thorn. 

Autumn, among her drooping marigolds 

Keeps all her garnered sheaves, and empty folds, 

And dripping orchards — plundered and forlorn. 

David Gray, In the Shadows. 



XXXVIII.— AUTUMN ON THE WELSH HILLS 

(CONTINUED). 

Moston, October 2. 

IT is now quite thirty years since, with a good 
deal of youthful rashness, and discarding all guides 
and paths, I climbed straight out of the middle of the 
Pass of Llanberis and up the precipitous crags to the 
top of Crib-y-Ddysgyl ; from which I saw, for the 
first time, the neighbouring peak of Snowdon. It was 
the only great mountain with which I had then made 
familiar acquaintance. No doubt there is something 
in the predispositions of first love ; but, certainly, 



214 Country Pleasures. 

though I have seen many great eminences since, I 
know of none which, if we take it in all its aspects, is 
finer than Snowdon. Of course it is not mere height 
above the sea-level which makes the grandeur of a 
mountain ; this depends upon many things — the ex- 
istence of more peaks than one, and the grouping of 
them ; the abruptness or suddenness of outline ; the 
contour of the hollows or cwms t and the presence or 
absence of water ; and above all the depth and angle 
of the precipices, for upon these will depend, more 
than upon anything else, the production of the finest 
aerial effects. 

The actual summit of Snowdon is not more than 
some six yards in breadth, and as you climb towards 
it, over the narrow ridge mentioned in my last Notes, 
you hardly know whether the awful horn which is 
seen above you, curving through the mist, should be 
reckoned as a thing appertaining to the solid earth or 
to the shifting sky. As we mounted slowly up this 
final reach we saw the broad-shouldered athlete of 
our party skipping lightly down towards us like a 
messenger from the clouds. To him a few hundred 
feet or a few pounds weight more or less are nothing ; 
and so, taking sundry bags and satchels with him, he 
had gone forward to rouse the surly guardian of the 
huts, and was now descending again to meet us. 



October. 2 1 5 



When at length we stepped on to the little plateau of 
the summit the rain and wind were both so fierce 
that we were glad to rush under cover for a few 
minutes ; nor was the bowl of hot tea which we 
found waiting for us an unwelcome surprise. 

When we came out again, though the rain was 
still heavy, the air was clearer. The wind, being 
from the west, flung the clouds against that side of 
the mountain, but left the inner or eastern side com- 
paratively free. There were no far-reaching views, 
such as we have sometimes seen, over half the Princi- 
pality and far out to sea ; we had not even that won- 
derful glimpse into the green bottom of Llanberis ; 
but there were all the grand precipices which make 
the peculiarity of the mountain. And what precipices 
they are ! Down into .Cwm-y-Llan, is nineteen hun- 
dred feet ; while the fall into Cwm-glas Llyn is nearly 
sixteen hundred feet at an angle of about seventy 
degrees. Taking what is called the Capel-Curig 
descent we turn sharply to the right, leaving the 
tamer Llanberis path on the left, and rattle along a 
break-neck track, half torrent half sliding shale, down 
to the shore of Glas-Llyn. Standing by this tarn, 
the waters of which ,are always singularly green, you 
are two thousand feet above the sea ; and yet you 
are sunk into a deep hollow from which there rise 



2 1 6 Country Pleasures. 

the three great shoulders or peaks of Snowdon — Crib- 
y-Ddysgyl, Crib-Goch, and Y-Wyddfa ; and also the 
long ridge called Lliwedd. The only outlet is a 
narrow one, and is due east, over Llyn Llydaw and 
Cwm-Dyli into Nant Gwynant. At this point you 
first feel the full sublimity of Snowdon. Looking 
across the wild little tarn the eye, overpowered, slowly 
finds its way up the vast cliff fifteen hundred feet 
high, right to the summit of the mountain. I am not 
alone in thinking that you may wander all over 
Europe, and find few finer pieces of mountain gran- 
deur than you have here. Before this great rock we 
lingered spell-bound, even in the pouring rain ; for 
surely never before was the grim and solid cliff — a 
cliff which has its own peculiar story of death to tell 
— more subtly overwoven with soft and ever-changing 
mist. 

After leaving Glas-Llyn we take the high ground 
under Crib-Goch, and so avoid going down to the 
margin of Llyn Llydaw. It is a wild walk through 
bog and rock and stream — the stream ever swelling, 
for the rain continues, and all round — 

The monstrous ledges slope, and spill 
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke, 
That, like a broken purpose, waste in air. 

But at last we see below us the cheerless little inn at 



October. 2 1 7 



Gorphysfa, and are once more on the firm high road, 
seven hours after leaving it on the other side of the 
mountain. 

At Pen-y-Gwryd we turn into the famous, but 
still primitive, hotel for a few minutes' chat at the 
kitchen fire with good Mrs. Owen, the motherly 
hostess. We would gladly have stayed here, but the 
house, as usual, is full of Oxford men, and we must 
push on five miles farther to Capel-Curig. The road 
is wild and lonely. In the gloom, we see on one side 
the long ridge of Glyder-Fach, and on the other 
Llyniau-Mymbyr, two small and dreary lakes, now so 
deeply in shadow that, as we hurry past, we can only 
make out a narrow strip of water close by the nearer 
bank. Passing through the silent village of Capel- 
Curig, we find comfortable quarters, and something 
more than a professional welcome, from old friends 
at the Tan-y-Bwlch Hotel. 

The next day brings a fortunate change in the 
weather. Even before we rise we feel the sunshine 
in the room ; and, coming into the open air, we see 
the ' glorious morning ' 

Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, 
Kissing with golden face the meadows green, 
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy. 

The mountains, the meadows, the streams are all 



218 Country Pleasures. 

here ; indeed, if we add the woods, which are not in 
Shakspere's sonnet, we make up the whole landscape 
as it presents itself at the door of the Tan-y-Bwlch 
Hotel. And the landscape from this precise point is 
one of the most perfect imaginable. If one wanted 
to plan a gracious surprise, it could not be better done 
than by bringing a stranger over the flat waste from 
Pen-y-Gwryd, so that he should see the night fall on 
the bare and desolate Glyder, and, reaching here 
after dark, open his eyes in the morning on the alto- 
gether lovely prospect which lies before us. No 
transformation could be more complete. We leave 
behind savage sterility and enter upon a narrow but 
fertile vale ; we exchange a treeless wilderness for 
the clustering wood ; the meadows are fair and green ; 
the river sweeps along, now a smooth stream, now a 
thundering torrent hemmed in by rocky walls, and 
over all there is the craggy front and the smooth 
sloping crest of Moel-Siabod. It is the scene which 
Clarence Whaite, sitting in these very fields, painted 
so finely some twenty years ago with Charles Kingsley 
looking over his shoulder. 

Here in delightful idleness we lingered all through 
the long and quiet morning — in the garden watching 
the bees, leaning over the wooden bridge which spans 
the stream, or wandering up and down to find old 



October. 2 1 



nooks and corners of beauty, old points of view ; and, 
alas, old acquaintances ; but these were nearly all 
sadly changed or gone for ever. Into one place — the 
neighbouring inn at Tyn-y-coed — we had not the 
heart to enter, for the old low-roofed hostel has given 
place to a brand-new building, and we should not 
have been able to find the little room where we used 
to get the sweetest honey in Wales, laid on the table 
fresh from the comb, and smelling of the heather on 
the fells above ; and where, in the long autumn 
nights, sitting by the peat fire, we were first initiated 
into the mysteries of Welsh by lips which were sweet 
enough to have made soft and liquid even a harsher 
language than that of the Cymru. There was, at 
any rate, in that ' learning ' no ' wearisome bitter- 
ness.' 

About noon we started slowly for Bettws-y-coed, 
and, as we took our last look of the stream flowing 
through the meadow, we thought of Wordsworth's 
1 Yarrow Revisited,' and of two stanzas in that poem 
which, if we substitute ' Llugwy ' for ' Yarrow,' will 
reproduce with singular exactness the feeling of the 
hour: — 

For busy thoughts the Stream flowed on 

In foaming agitation ; 
And slept in many a crystal pool 

For quiet contemplation : 



220 Country Pleasures. 

No public and no private care 

The freeborn mind enthralling, 
We made a day of happy hours, 

Our happy days recalling. 

And if, as Yarrow, through the woods 

And down the meadow ranging, 
Did meet us with unaltered face, 

Though we were changed and changing ; 
If, then, some natural shadows spread 

Our inward prospect over, 
The soul's deep valley was not slow 

Its brightness to recover. 

It would be difficult to find five miles of road 
better adapted for a leisurely stroll on a blue and 
sunny day than are those between Capel-Curig and 
Bettws. We were ever turning round to watch the 
varying shape of Moel-Siabod ; or lingering to pluck 
the late campanula, and to gather the blackberries 
which were thick and ripe in the straggling hedges. 
And then there was the cataract at Pont-y Gyfyng, 
where the mountain-ash hung its red berries over the 
torrent ; and farther on, the great Fall of the Swallow, 
swollen with the previous day's rain, and looking its 
very best. After this, crossing the wall, we left the 
high road and wandered along through the wood, 
and by the Miner's Bridge, to Bettws. It was a fine 
thing to end with. Under our feet was a thick carpet 
made of mosses and green leaves, sorrel and crowfoot 



October. 221 



and ivy ; on the rocks the little herb-robert was still 
in flower ; in some places the colour of the bracken 
burned like fire ; the sun brought out the scent of the 
pines ; and across the stream the steep unwooded 
bank was covered with yellow gorse, which to our 
surprise, was still in full bloom. 

How changed is here each spot man makes or fills ! — 

one might well say on entering the village of Bettws. 
The foolish and unnecessary intrusion of the railway 
station and the erection of villa lodging-houses in 
places from which the slightest sense of fitness would 
have excluded them, have, indeed, robbed it of more 
than half its beauty. A mile outside, however, in any 
direction, there is still the old peace and seclusion ; 
and, as we go down by the line in the evening, we see 
that the vale of Llanrwst is yet as lovely as ever, and 
that all the modern building has not been able to spoil 
that unrivalled mediaeval picture which is presented by 
the towers of Conway Castle. 



XXXIX.-- ECHOES OF THE SPRING 

October 9. 

THE fine still weather which often distinguishes the 
month of October, has not reached us yet. There 



222 Country Pleasures. 

have been many wet and dreary days ; and sometimes 
in the morning a cold mist which seemed to bring the 
winter ominously near. We have had floods of rain 
also, and frequent high winds. On the last day of 
September the rainfall was so heavy and sudden, that 
the pond overflowed its banks before we could open 
the sluice. Going out after breakfast there was a new 
scene displayed — a stream two yards wide rushing 
down the garden where there should have been a dry 
walk ; and in the dell quite a noisy waterfall. Two 
days ago there came a violent wind at sunset. Being 
in the lane after dark I found myself stumbling over 
branches of trees which had been snapped off, and 
wading ankle-deep in the drift of leaves. Over- 
head there was a weird sky — steel-blue but nearly 
covered with black and tumbling clouds, among 
which the moon seemed to wander distractedly, 
now half-enshrouded, and the next moment totally 
eclipsed. 

The general temperature has been exceptionally 
high, the prevailing wind being from the south ; but 
notwithstanding we have had our first frost. This 
came on the second of the month, the thermometer 
falling to twenty-seven degrees. In the morning the 
boys boasted that they had contrived to slide on 
the walks ; and, the air being sunny, we saw the 



October. 223 



pigeons fluttering over the white frosted roof of the 
barn. 

The high winds have, as might be expected, made 
great havoc among both leaves and fruit. The trees 
on which the leaves still hang most thickly are the 
beech and the oak, the hawthorn, and the elder. The 
ash, though late to clothe itself, is already compara- 
tively bare. Of the fruit nothing remains but the 
Siberian crabs and the elderberries. The crabs fall 
every night, and in the morning I see the blackbirds 
feasting upon them ; the geese, too, whenever they can 
get into the garden by stealth or force of wing, make 
for the corner where they are chiefly to be found, and 
gobble them up with much gusto. The fruit of the 
elder is nearly, but not quite, ripe ; the berries, how- 
ever, are black, and look very rich, hanging in thick 
clusters on the purple stalks. Poor John Clare, whose 
country sketches were always careful and accurate, in 
his ' Shepherd's Calendar ' for October, speaks of the 
appearance of the elder at a period just a little later 
than the present : — 

Wild shines each hedge in autumn's gay parade ; 
And, where the eldern trees to autumn fade, 
The glossy berry picturesquely cleaves 
Its swarthy bunches 'mid the yellow leaves, 
On which the tootling robin feeds at will, 
And coy hedge-sparrow stains its little bill ; 



224 Country Pleasures. 

The village dames, as they get ripe and fine, 
Gather the bunches for their ' eldern wine ; ' 
Which, bottled up, becomes a rousing charm, 
To kindle winter's icy bosom warm ; 
And, with its merry partner, nut-brown beer, 
Makes up the peasant's Christmas-keeping cheer. 

I never look at the hardy and much-enduring elder 
without feeling thankful for all the pleasure which it 
affords us through so large a space of the year. On 
January the twenty-third its new leaves were first 
uncurling ; at the end of April I saw the flower-bud ; 
by June the twentieth the bushes were covered with 
the creamy-white blossom which lingered for nearly 
a month ; at the beginning of September the berries 
were formed ; and now in October we have them 
hanging among the leaves, which, in spite of all vicis- 
situdes, are still fresh and green — greener, in fact, than 
any other of the deciduous trees. 

All through the month of September, and so far as 
we have come in October, there has been going on a 
curious reproduction in a faint degree of the pheno- 
mena of spring. Long after the foxgloves were over, 
and when the once gay spires were turned into gaunt 
and broken stalks of empty seed-pods, two or three 
plants broke into bloom. They were not so tall 
as their predecessors, but they were quite as beautiful. 
Now that the flowers are fewer in number we note 



October. 225 



them more carefully. What an exquisite and fairy- 
like thing is the foxglove bell, if we examine it 
minutely ! The outer lip of the corolla is a light 
pink ; inside, the colour becomes a deep rose. As you 
look into it you see that the bottom is delicately 
spotted with white and brown, and that just at the 
entrance there are a number of short hairs, which 
stand erect and glisten like silver ; these are slightly 
dusted with the pollen which has been left upon 
them by some departing bee. The four stamens fold 
curiously together on each side of the style : the 
anthers are yellow, and are dotted with brown, like a 
bird's egg. But the most beautiful thing of all is to 
see how the light comes through the transparent 
tissue at the remote end of the bell, so that the 
recess round the seed-vessel is tinged with the softest 
green. 

I have mentioned the foxgloves because they were 
the most conspicuous revival ; but, if we look carefully 
around, we shall see that all sorts of things are grow- 
ing as if it were the beginning of the year and not the 
end. The out-door beds of musk and the plots of 
willow-herb have had a second blooming. The straw- 
berries are many of them in flower again ; so are the 
blue periwinkle and the wild chrysanthemum, not to 
speak of buttercups and daisies and dandelions. The 

Q 



226 Country Pleasures. 

currant trees, the gooseberries, the climbing roses, and 
the syringa are all showing bright points of new leaf- 
bud. Even the apples, which have only just dropped 
their fruit, are dimly swelling with fresh life. There 
is one other vernal sign which must be noted. 
Nothing is more characteristic of the spring than the 
loud singing of birds immediately before the departure 
of daylight, The same thing is repeated now. Just 
when the twilight is deepest I hear the birds break 
into a chorus of song which, although it is faint 
and low when compared with what we remember of 
the past, is yet cheerful enough if we contrast it 
with the scene of decay by which we are at present 
surrounded. 



XL.— ASPECTS OF AUTUMN IN THE GARDEN AND 
THE WOOD. 

October 16. 
In the spring of the year we estimate our wealth 
by the number of our added possessions, in the 
autumn by the infrequency of our losses : the delight 
of the earlier season largely consists in the continually 
fulfilled expectancy of what is new ; the pleasure of 
the latter lies in a sober retention and enjoyment of 
what is old. How closely do the periods of man's 



October. 227 



life correspond to those of nature : or, in other words, 
how exquisitely 

The external World is fitted to the Mind ! 

In my last Notes I mentioned some of those 
flowers which help to brighten the time of decay by 
their unexpected return : one should also record those 
which have continued longest with us in consequence 
of their hardihood. Among the last of these are the 
campanula, a few flowers of which may still be seen 
shaking in the breeze ; the marigolds — Shakspere's 
1 Winking Mary-buds,' — pleasant to look at now 
when the sunshine is so scarce ; the nasturtiums 
trailing over the rock-work ; the spiked-veronica on 
the perennial-bed ; and the white-jasmine flowers 
which are sparsely scattered among the dark green 
foliage on the wall. How accurate is Cowper ! Speak- 
ing of the jasmine, he says — 

The jasmine, throwing wide her elegant sweets, 
The deep dark green of whose unvarnish'd leaf 
Makes more conspicuous, and illumines more 
The bright profusion of her scattered stars. 

In the greenhouse the most conspicuous things re- 
maining are the habrothamnus, with its heavy purple 
clusters ; the pure-tinted plumbago ; the red-and- 
white fuchsias ; and the many-coloured geraniums. 
In the wood there are now both hips and haws on 

Q2 



228 Country Pleasures. 

the rose-bushes and the thorns. The first are the 
most plentiful, and are very brilliant — a bright red 
on the side which has caught the sun, yellow in the 
shade ; the latter are darker in colour, and although 
the sparrows can hardly need them yet for food, I 
observe that they already haunt the trees where the 
haws are to be found. 

At no other season of the year do we feel so much 
as now the presence or absence of a little sunshine. 
I often notice how even a faint gleam will change 
the whole sentiment of the landscape. And when 
we get the sun, how charming the prospect still 
remains ! From the window I look out in the morn- 
ing over a little stretch of broken and undulating 
ground. Many of the trees are thin and bare, but the 
brown tint of them is by no means unpleasant ; and, 
as others near are still clothed with leaves, there is a 
grateful contrast between the clearly- cut articulations 
of the one and the less definite masses of the other. 
Nearest to the eye a yellow beech overhangs and 
mixes its leaves with a dark holly ; and, owing to 
the rising conformation of the land, the background 
of the whole picture is green, and a green of the most 
vivid character, for the autumn has had no effect 
yet on the grass of the meadows. Returning to the 
wood, I notice the curious colours of the leaves that 



October. 229 



remain hanging loosely on the two or three dogwood 
trees which we have growing under the oaks and 
ashes. The long oval leaf is still green, but is oddly 
streaked or ribbed with red. This peculiar colour 
of the dogwood is alluded to in the following 
passage : — 

The Lime first fading ; and tne golden Birch, 
With bark of silver hue ; the moss-grown Oak, 
Tenacious of its leaves of russet brown ; 
The ensanguined Dogwood ; and a thousand tints 
Which Flora, dressed in all her pride of bloom, 
Could scarcely equal, decorate the groves. 

Our good friend Felix, the bird-master, who takes 
much pleasure in these things, was at great pains the 
other day to bring with him, all the way from Surrey, 
two hundred miles or more, some considerable branches 
of dogwood, which were thickly covered with berries. 
He brought them, as he said, not only for their own 
beauty, but because they carried with them certain 
associations, for was it not probable that our dra- 
matist had the tree in his mind when he gave a name 
to that fine fellow for a ' sixth and lastly,' Constable 
Dogberry of the Watch ? The leaves on these 
specimens were not so much ' ensanguined ' as those 
on our own trees ; but the berries were of a most 
beautiful colour, and more nearly resembling coral than 
anything else I have seen. In the North, so far as I 



230 Country Pleasures. 

know, the tree does not bear its fruit ; but in the 
warm lanes of Surrey it is at present loaded with its 
pink capsules, and must give to the hedges a rich and 
peculiar colour. 

On the south-east side of the house here are some 
fine trees — fine still, though they have been much 
finer. Two large brother-elms, with knotted boles 
that lean towards each other, and some six or eight 
others — beech, chestnut, and lime — make a thick 
grove in summer. They are almost leafless now ; 
but if one chooses to open the window at dawn one 
may hear from their midst the sweetest and most 
cheery sound which autumn has to give — the clear 
whistle of the robin. I see him as he sits high up 
in the trees a small speck — small, yet how full of 
undaunted life. In the well-known ' Address to 
Autumn,' by John Keats — one of those pieces of 
which it may be truly said that they have added, for 
Englishmen, a perceptible charm to Nature herself — 
the song of the robin is included as among the salient 
features of the season. The last stanza is : — 

Where are the songs of Spring ? Ay, where are they ? 

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, 
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue ; 
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn 

Among the river sallows, borne aloft 

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies ; 



October. 231 



And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourne ; 
Hedge-crickets sing ; and now with treble soft 
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, 
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. 

Besides the trees I have mentioned there is one other 
— an ancient oak, long dead but standing erect and 
strong, like a monumental column, in the middle of 
the lawn. In the morning I can tell the time by its 
shadow on the grass, and it often catches the last 
rays of sunset. The upper part of the trunk has 
been cut away, but it is still forty or fifty feet high, 
and its girth is about eleven feet. The branches 
have been lopped and project only two or three yards 
from the bole. In itself it would be an ungraceful, 
although a venerable, object ; but at the base there 
springs a stem of ivy ; some fourteen inches in circum- 
ference ; and from this there runs a countless number 
of intertwisted twigs and tendrils which cover the 
whole trunk and festoon the shapeless boughs with 
thick masses of green leaves. It is, of course, a 
notable haunt of birds — a kind of Republic or Agape- 
mone where all sorts meet for chatter and the inter- 
change of attentions and courtesies. Just now the 
ivy is covered with its clusters of yellow and green 
flowers. Their appearance would not attract a care- 
less observer ; but if we examine them minutely we 



232 Country Pleasures. 

see that they have a rich and honied look, and that 

Spenser's description is not inapt : — 

An Arber greene dispred, 
Framed of wanton Yvie, flouring fayre. 

The smell of the flowers is like that of thyme ; 
and I was not surprised one sunny morning to find 
a whole cloud of bees buzzing around them. 

The weather during the week has gradually im- 
proved, being for the most part fine, though with a 
lower temperature ; and at night we have been able 
to get pleasant walks across the open country under 
the full brilliancy of the Hunters' Moon. 



XLI.—THE INDIAN SUMMER. 

October 30. 
As autumn proceeds, we watch anxiously for that 
season of respite which in America is known as the 
Indian Summer, and in our own country as the Little 
Summer of St. Luke — a time of warmth and stillness 
and soft beauty, in the midst of which we would fain 
linger. It may be that this stolen period has reached 
us and passed away since I last wrote. If so, it must 
have been indeed a very little one. The present 
weather, at any rate, could not pretend to have the 
slightest affinity with anything known to us as 
summer. Yesterday there was, thunder, every day 



October. 233 



the rain is frequent and cheerless, the twilight comes 
early and is soon gone, and at that time there is often 
a cold and windy look about the sky which inevitably 
brings up thoughts of winter. 

A week ago, however, things were very different. 
The eighteenth of October is the festival of St. Luke, 
and it is on that day, or near it, that the serene 
weather usually arrives. Late on the night of the 
seventeenth, I looked out of the window and saw 
that the change had come. The clouds were all gone 
from the sky, and the trees were still. The half- 
moon was in the north-east, and her light was 
singularly pure and brilliant. On the lawn you 
could see the deep shadow of the house, with its 
chimneys and gables, and even a straggling and 
projecting branch of the pear-tree on the wall, quite 
sharp and distinct ; but beyond that the ground was 
so dazzlingly white that I had to look more than once 
or twice before I could convince myself that there 
had not been a sudden fall of snow. To make sure, 
I went to another window, but even there the same 
delusive appearance was very strong, for the moon- 
light caught the top of an ivied wall, the bottom of 
which was in shadow, and again I said, ' Surely it 
must be snow.' The morning which followed was 
very beautiful ; the sky clear blue, but covered with 



234 Country Pleasures. 

those white curling clouds which, as we gaze up at 
them, look so like far-reaching flocks of innumerable 
sheep. Although this sky is the picture of peace, 
yet on watching it very closely one could see that 
beneath the motionless clouds, whose shapes were so 
curiously and infinitely repeated,* there was moving 
rapidly along a thin veil of white mist which seemed 
to be alternately accumulated and dispelled. Bloom- 
field the peasant poet has depicted such a sky with 
considerable elegance of expression : — 

For yet above these wafted clouds are seen 
(In a remoter sky, still more serene) 
Others, detach'd in ranges through the air, 
Spotless as snow, and countless as they're fair ; 
Scatter'd immensely wide from east to west, 
The beauteous 'semblance of a Flock at rest. 

During the night the fall of dew had been very 
heavy, and it was worth while to stoop and examine 
the grass. Can anything be more exquisite than the 
hundred separate pearls, which at such a time may be 
counted on each green blade ? As the sun brightened, 
I could not help noticing how soft were the shadows 
of the trees as they fell across the wet lawn. A 
shadow on the dewy grass is not the same as that 
which falls upon the dry. 

This weather continued for a few days, the wind 
being south, with slight divergence to east or west, 



October, 235 



and the thermometer rising to sixty degrees in the 
daytime, and falling only a little below fifty at night. 
On the twentieth there was rain ; but it was like the 
warm rain of summer. On the same day I found 
a primrose in bloom, and the yellow-jasmine was 
breaking into bud. About Christmas the jasmine 
will be in flower. 

In all corners of the garden now the spiders' webs, 
covered with prey, are very conspicuous ; and when 
the air is dry at night you cannot pass down the walks 
without feeling that the mysterious gossamer is being 
woven across your face. How small, and yet how 
large in their power of production must the creatures 
be by whom this strange net-work is evolved. I have 
never been able to find them at their task ; but I 
think I have caught them in the daytime hiding in 
flower-cups and on the under-side of the leaves — tiny 
spiders, not quite so big as a pin's head. That they 
have power to float in the air, carrying the thread 
with them, I have often proved when walking, for in- 
stance, by the edge of the pond, where, on one side at 
least, the creature could have found no support. It 
is not easy to discover the object of these frail cocoons, 
for no flies are visible upon them. Their extent and 
the uniformity of their occurrence also is very amazing. 
I have frequently seen two or three hundred yards of 



236 Country Pleasures. 

garden paling festooned with them in the morning. 
The work has been done in a single night and each 
little filmy thread is passed from point to point with 
the regularity of the chains on a suspension bridge. 

Another characteristic phenomenon just now is 
that of the /ungi. Every day there is a new and 
prolific crop in the grass, around the roots of trees, 
and especially on the old stumps which have been 
left in the ground. Many of them are repulsive 
both in shape and colour, being frequently a dull and 
ugly brown — ' Brownest toadstones,' as Herrick calls 
them — but sometimes they are rich in colour — amber 
and pink — and often remind you, both in form and 
tint, of the anemones and other creatures which line 
the sides of the rock-pools by the sea-shore. 

The mosses are also very brilliant at this time, 
especially those which adorn the trunks of trees. I 
notice that they usually appear on the side which 
fronts the north or north-east. If a colourist wishes 
to see the perfection of green, let him stand before 
one of these trees and observe how the tint is 
developed from the rough brown of the bark at the 
two outer edges, slowly and with almost impercep- 
tible gradations, until it culminates at the centre in a 
pure and vivid emerald which no skill of hand or 
cunningly mixed pigment could possibly reproduce. 



October. 237 



The sparrows have all returned and are here in 
astonishing numbers. They have been away, I sup- 
pose, in the harvest fields, feeding sumptuously every 
day. Now they will begin to clear the garden of its 
pests. They usually gather together a little before 
dusk ; and their favourite meeting-place is a broad- 
topped oak which has more leaves upon it now than 
any other of the neighbouring trees. From this tree 
as a centre they are incessantly darting out, returning 
quickly, and chasing each other from bough to bough. 
The sound of their united twittering and whistling is 
very peculiar. As it seems to me, their only object 
is amusement, for I have not been able to discover 
any method or serious purpose in their action at this 
time. I was standing under this tree the other night 
watching their movements, when the sound of a 
distant gun sent them all abroad, and I saw that 
there must have been more than two hundred of them 
perched in this place alone. As the darkness comes 
on they slowly and almost imperceptibly disperse. 
I have tried to follow them but cannot ; and I often 
ask myself, Where do all these birds go to in the 
night ? I have looked for them after dark, but have 
never been able to find more than two or three sitting 
here and there on the hawthorns. 



238 Country Pleasures. 



XLU.—THE GLEN. 

October 24. 

The face of the country here, though undulating 
and far from monotonous when considered in detail, 
would be broadly described as flat, the base of the 
hills being five or six miles away. This comparatively 
level surface, however, is frequently indented by pic- 
turesque and winding ravines, which have been 
gradually scooped out by the slow agency of winter 
floods. What we call The Glen is one of the smaller 
of these ravines. Its shape is irregular. There is a 
main trunk along which the principal stream flows, 
and there are besides two or three branching hollows, 
each of which has its own water-course. One of these 
takes its rise within our own garden-enclosure, and is 
known to us as The Dell. The water from the pond 
flows through it, and it is here that the boys make 
mimic water-wheels. In spring the slopes of it are 
blue with hyacinths, and there are some fine ferns 
about the roots of the tall ash-trees which rise on 
each side. At the top of the Dell there is an old 
wooden dove-cage mounted on a tree-stump. We 
have put it there as a shelter or rendezvous for the 
birds, if they choose to use it ; and as the bars are 
wide apart they can pass in and out as they wish. 



October. 239 



Just now it is covered with branches, which, in prun- 
ing, have been cut from the rose-bushes and placed 
here so that the birds might pluck the scarlet hips 
which are still hanging upon them. Outside the fence 
the Dell has been filled up and is crossed by a 
public road, under which the water runs, continuing 
its course down into the Glen. Standing in the road 
you may look along the narrow ravine and see a 
picture of considerable beauty. The ash-trees which 
begin in our garden grow more thickly here. The 
stems, having to climb towards the light, are long 
and bare, and lean towards each other so as to cross 
near the summit. In this way they make a vista 
down which the eye travels with the same pleasure 
that it would along an aisle of gothic arches. 

The Glen is always a surprise to strangers. If 
one should come to it in the depth of summer and 
find himself, not on the outskirts, but in the very 
midst, the exclamation which would be sure to rise 
to his lips would be — ' How thick the foliage — this 
might be thirty miles away from any town ! ' Truth 
to tell, it is an oasis. The city is ever stealing nearer 
and nearer upon it ; and is, in fact, rapidly making 
a sterile wilderness of the surrounding fields. This 
makes the place more precious — we know that it will 
soon be gone, and when we first catch sight of its 



240 Country Pleasures. 

leafy edge, as we return home in the evening, we say 
— ' This is the happy valley in whose precincts we 
shall find once more peace and repose.' 

The Glen is not large. To walk round it follow- 
ing its irregular margin would be a journey perhaps 
of some three quarters of a mile. In doing this we 
should start from our own gates ; and, descending a 
steep lane, pass the picturesque cottages which have 
been already mentioned in these Notes. Ascending 
again, one comes upon an old house, in front of 
which may still be seen the stone mounting-steps, 
where the stirrup-cup may often have been tossed off ; 
and which tell their own tale of riders long dead. Here, 
standing under a gnarled and twisted elm, at the edge 
of the declivity, we look down on the grey roofs of 
the cottages, and into the Glen itself. At this point, 
if we have permission, we may most easily descend 
into it. In the cloudy afternoon of an October day 
the place is very still and not unlovely, although the 
summer is gone, and although even the return of 
summer will not bring back the beauty which we 
have known of old. When we reach the bottom and 
wander along the grassy path by the brook-side, we 
see how exquisite are the folding and over-lapping 
lines of the green slopes as they fall back one behind 
another. This is the great beauty of the Glen. The 



October. 24 1 



ridges all round are set with trees which show them- 
selves against the sky. There is the beech, the chest- 
nut, the sycamore, the silver birch, and one purple 
beech, which we have watched for nearly twenty 
years, putting on, season after season, its glorious and 
ever-changing apparel of green, of light brown, 
of purple, and lastly of brilliant red. 

By the path there are still in flower the daisy, the 
dandelion, the shepherd's purse, and the scabious or 
devil's-bit ; and among the long grass overhanging 
the brook there is one tuft of red-campion, a cheer- 
ful thing for October. In the bottom of the Glen 
there are two noble trees which rise above all the rest 
— a lime and an ash. Both of them might be sketched 
as characteristic of their species. The bole of the 
lime is, as usual, straight and well-formed ; and 
many a time have I watched for hours the gracefully- 
curving branches move up and down in the wind, 
with that feathery and finger-like motion which is so 
peculiar to them — 

The large lime feathers low, 
The lime a summer home of murmurous wings. 

The ash grows against a bank ; and on one side its 
roots, green and scaly, are half- exposed. A few 
leaves still hang on the spreading and shapely boughs 
and a bramble climbs about the lower part of the 



242 Country Pleas?cres. 

trunk. Just at the foot there are one or two roots of 
the autumn-crocus remaining in flower : every year 
they come up in the same place. Until quite re- 
cently a pair of magpies built in this ash-tree on each 
succeeding spring. The leaves were generally so 
thick that we seldom saw the nest until October ; but 
the birds were seen every day. They were very 
regular in their habits, and might be observed flying 
together up and down the Glen at a certain hour 
every morning. It is not often that these birds are 
to be found so near a large town. Two other trees 
are noticeable, a chestnut and a willow. The chest- 
nut, being low down, and protected from the wind, 
has retained its leaves ; and as these are touched 
with the fieriest tints of autumn it presents a splendid 
sight. They will all have fallen, however, in a day or 
two. As I look at it I think of those fantastic lines 
by William Allingham : — 

Bright yellow, red, and orange, 

The leaves come down in hosts ; 
The trees are Indian princes, 

But soon they'll turn to ghosts ; 
The leathery pears and apples 

Hang russet on the bough, 
It's Autumn, Autumn, Autumn late, 

'Twill soon be Winter now. 

The willow has been curiously warped in its youth, 
and grows right across the brook like a bridge, from 



October. 243 



one side to the other, some of the branches turning 
towards the sky and others downward towards the 
water. It is such a willow as that on whose ' pendent 
boughs ' the poor Ophelia hung her ' coronet weeds : ' — 

A willow grows aslant a brook, 
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream. 

The Glen is, as might be expected, a famous place 
for birds, though they are, of course, becoming more 
rare. The cuckoo used to be a regular visitant ; the 
wrens build in the bank near the willow mentioned 
above ; the blackbird is common : but the most fre- 
quent of all is the throstle. Indeed, my old friend, 
the stalwart author of the ' Passages in the Life of a 
Radical/ once told me, as we were sitting together one 
summer's day on these very slopes, that in his boy- 
hood the place was always known as ' Throstle 
Glen.' 

The winter seems to be coming upon us early. 
On the twenty-eighth there was hail ; and again last 
night. This morning there was ice on the walks, the 
heads of the dahlias were down, and the thermometer 
showed that we had had six degrees of frost. The robin 
felt the cold, and knew what it meant, I think ; for 
he began to show a desire for closer acquaintance. 
As I stood and whistled for him on the lawn he came 



244 Country Pleastwes. 

within two yards of me, lifting up his face in a pert 
fashion, and showing his deep yellow breast — it is 
hardly red yet — and then fluttering back into a neigh- 
bouring thorn. 



November. 245 



NOVEMBER f 

November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh ; 

The short'ning winter day is near a close ; 
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh ; 

The blackening trains o' craws to their repose : 
The toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes, 

This night his weekly moil is at an end, 
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, 

Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, 

And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. 
Robert Burns, The Cotter's Saturday Night. 



XL11L— THE FIRST WEEK OF WINTER; 
RED-LETTER DAYS. 

November 6. 

This week must be set down as the beginning of 
our winter. We shall, no doubt, have intervals of 
warmer weather ; but none the less we are constrained 
to admit that the severe season has made good its 
place and has developed already all its most charac- 
teristic forms. Every night there has been frost, the 
thermometer falling once as low as twenty-three de- 
grees. On the first of the month the pond was en- 
tirely covered with ice, and the rime was very thick 



246 Country Pleasures. 

on the grass. On the morning of the second there 
was a little sleety snow lying on the ground. On the 
third the sun rose with that red and beamless aspect 
which always suggests the very depth of winter ; and 
on the fourth there came a heavy white fog, which 
prevented us from seeing more than a yard or two 
from the window. It is interesting to observe how 
similar the weather is to that which we had at the 
beginning of the year, when we were as far past 
the shortest day as we are now on this side of it. 
The exhilarating brightness, the depressing gloom, 
the blind fog, and the sun-illumined mist are the 
exact counterparts of what we were having in the 
month of February. 

As the cold weather comes upon us the red-letter 
days seem to increase in the calendar. The week has 
been quite a succession of festivals. First came 
Halloween, the Vigil of All Saints ; or, in the earlier 
tongue, of All Hallows. However lukewarm we older 
people may become with regard to these holidays 
the young folks, especially in country houses, are 
not disposed to let them sink into desuetude ; and so 
in the kitchen there was a larger fire than usual, 
and in the middle of the floor a great pail of 
water, filled with some of those apples which a little 
while ago we had gathered from the trees. The 



November, 247 



ducking and splashing are a source of great fun ; and, 
if one chooses to moralise, one may see how success 
in the slippery chase falls only to the youngster who 
can bring to the pursuit both cunning and perse- 
verance. 

This diving for apples seems to be most common 
in the North of England. Burns makes no mention 
of it in his well-known poem ' Halloween/ With 
him it is the burning of nuts and the pulling of 
stocks or plants of kail, and other strange ceremonies 
for purposes of divination : — 

Amang the bonnie, winding banks, 

Where Doon rins, wimplin', clear, 
Where Bruce ance rul'd the martial ranks, 

An' shook his Carrick spear, 
Some merry, friendly, countra folks 

Together did convene, 
To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, 

An' haud their Halloween 

Fu' blythe that night. 

The next day — the first of November — was All 
Saints. This festival was formerly regarded as sig- 
nalising the close of harvest. By this time all fruits 
are supposed to be gathered in ; and, as we looked 
over our own garden, we saw that nothing was left 
but a few brilliant clusters on the Siberian crab. It 
was a pleasant sight in the bright winter's morning to 
see a large blackbird sitting on one of the branches, 



248 Country Pleasures. 

making his breakfast on the now over-ripe fruit. 
The beauty of this day and the clearness of the sky 
reminded us of those sweet and consolatory stanzas 
which open Keble's poem for All Saints : — 

Why blow'st thou not, thou wintry wind, 

Now every leaf is brown and sere, 
And idly droops, to thee resign'd, 

The faded chaplet of the year ? 
Yet wears the pure aerial sky 
Her summer veil, half drawn on high, 
Of silvery haze, and dark and still 
The shadows sleep on every slanting hill. 

How quiet shows the woodland scene ! 
Each flower and tree, its duty done, 
Reposing in decay serene, 

Like weary men when age is won, 
Such calm old age as conscience pure 
And self-commanding hearts ensure, 
Waiting their summons to the sky, 
Content to live, but not afraid to die. 

All Saints is followed by All Souls, the day upon 
which it was formerly the custom to bake and eat 
soul-cakes and to ring bells for the protection of the 
dead from evil spirits. It is curious to note that 
while the associations of this season in the mind of 
Keble are all of them evidently of a benign and 
cheerful character, another writer, of not very dis- 
similar tendencies, Kenelm Digby, connects the time 
with all that is wild and awful. In his ' Morus ' he 



November. 249 



speaks of a mournful colouring being, at this season, 
spread over nature, highly favourable to romantic 
feelings, high thoughts, and generous deeds, and then 
adds : — ' Historians have often remarked how fre- 
quently this season has been distinguished by its 
tempests. In the eighteenth year of Henry I., All 
Hallowne Day was attended by a storm of equal 
horror, " at which," we are told, " the people were 
marvellously amazed." And on All Souls Day, the 
year in which Richard I. was taken prisoner in 
Germany, the North-West side of the element ap- 
peared on fire a little before the break of day. It 
was on All Hallowne night, about midnight, that 
Cavendish was called up at Assher, to let in Sir John 
Russel and a troop of horsemen, who were come with 
comfortable tidings to Cardinal Wolsey of the king's 
returning favour, when he tells us it rained all that 
night most vehemently, as it did at any time the year 
before. So that after Sir John had delivered his 
message from the king, and given the ring, he con- 
cluded, saying, "And, Sir, I have had the sorest 
journey for so little a way, that ever I had to my 
remembrance." ' 

Three days after All Souls there comes a day of 
another kind — the Festival of Gunpowder, shall we 
call it, or the Feast of St. Guy ? Bonfires were origin- 



250 Country Pleasures. 

ally one of the accompaniments of Halloween ; and, 
no doubt, the lighting of great fires at this time has 
really more to do with the ancient holidays than with 
the comparatively modern historical ' Plot.' In Lan- 
cashire we seem to have been always famous for the 
keeping of festivals, and the lighting of bonfires. Old 
Michael Drayton, writing of this neighbourhood in 
the ' Polyolbion,' says : — 

Was never seen such rule 
In any place but here, at Boon-fire or at Yule ; 
And every village smokes at wakes with lusty cheer, 
Then * Hey,' they cry, < for Lun, 5 and ( Hey for Lancashire.' 

For a week or two the boys have been very busy 
gathering together materials for the annual fire ; and 
by the fifth the woodhouse was filled with hedge- 
clippings, old roots, fallen branches, and even dead 
boughs which, with the help of the gardener, had 
been lopped or sawn from the trees. The night was 
clear and fine and there was no difficulty in lighting 
the great pile which had been reared on a vacant plot 
in the garden, far enough from the house to prevent 
danger from the vagrant sparks. It was a moment 
of excitement when the fire was seen to be creeping 
up from the base, and we noticed that the vast masses 
of smoke which roiled over our heads were silvered 
by the moon, and made clouds as real as those which 



November. 251 



we see in the sky. When the flames had fairly taken 
hold of the pile we made a circle and danced round 
it just as the fire- worshippers may have done thou- 
sands of years ago. My friend the Painter, who was 
a visitor for the night, was transfixed with admiration. 
He saw pictures. That charred trunk in the centre 
of the burning pyramid, how like it was to — 

A pale martyr in his shirt of fire ; 

and the flames themselves, how wonderful they were 
as they leapt quivering into the air, reaching towards 
us as with an almost human motive, and maintaining 
for an instant a life individual and distinct from the 
mass whence they had sprung, and then vanishing 
into nothingness like a broken endeavour. ' Men 
scarcely know ' — Shelley might well say — ' How 
beautiful fire is.' It is indeed beautiful ; but it is the 
beauty of the pard, and of that kind which consists 
with swiftness and terror. 

A little after midnight, when the logs had all 
fallen in, and the great fire was only a circle of bright 
embers lying flat on the ground, and when all the 
flaring of rockets, and the smoking, and the shouting, 
and the cannonading were done with, I looked up 
and saw what a still and beautiful night there was 
overhead. A light wind from the north had brought 



252 Country Pleasures. 

up into the otherwise clear sky a drift of snowy clouds 
— I saw how white they were by contrast with the 
black trees — and there, in the south-west, was the 
moon sitting among them, soft yet brilliant, the very 
image of placid beauty. It needed only a little 
stretch of fancy to see in her face a touch of disdain 
as she looked down upon the extinction of our tran- 
sient show ! 



XLIV.— A SNOW-STORM. 

November 13. 

NOVEMBER is maintaining all the characteristics of 
a severe winter. On All Saints and All Souls the 
season may be said to have been fairly ushered in, 
the first snow falling on the night of the former day ; 
and this week, on Martinmas Day, we are visited by 
a snow-storm of no ordinary kind. 

It was not without warning that this heavy fall 
came upon us. For two or three days there had been 
cold rain, mixed with' sleet ; and at night sharp frost. 
The wind, too, was bitter — 

A wind out of the north, 
A sharp wind and a snell — 

as the old ballad has it. On the tenth the weather 
was changeful and stormy. A high wind accom- 



November. 253 



panied the rain, and in the afternoon there was a 
rainbow in the north-east, which, on such a day, seemed 
a portent rather than an augury of calm. At night 
we had a sinister-looking moon glimmering faintly 
through rifted clouds. 

In the garden we were made to feel that desola- 
tion had fallen upon all our pleasant places. The 
rain-drops hung half-frozen on the hedges, and hardly 
any foliage was left. Even the elder had at last 
succumbed. The leaves became flaccid with the first 
sharp frost ; but now, though still green, they were 
nearly all lying on the ground, and the light-coloured 
and straggling twigs, with only a stray leaf here and 
there twirling in the wind, looked even more wretched 
than those surrounding trees which had been earlier 
unclothed. 

As we wander down the alleys the bare trees show 
us how many happy nests there were in the summer 
— how many that we, with all our care, had never 
found, in unexpected corners, no less than in places 
so patent that the wonder is how we had missed 
them. An empty bird's nest is not a pleasant thing 
to look upon in the chill winter — and here is one not 
empty, but more melancholy still, for it contains the 
unhatched eggs of spring. Why forsaken, who can 
tell ? At such a time that exquisite but mournful 



254 Country Pleasures. 

sonnet of the great master is found to be the fittest 
expression of one's feeling : — 

That time of year thou mayst in me behold 

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day 

As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
Which by-and-by black night doth take away, 

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire 

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 
As the death-bed whereon it must expire 

Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by ; 
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, 
To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

It was a relief when, on the eleventh, the snow 
came. So early as three o'clock in the afternoon an 
ominous darkness, as of night, fell on the landscape 
and was not lifted again. The snow fell fast and in 
heavy flakes, and the gloom was strange and bewilder- 
ing. At a neighbouring farm the fowls were unable 
to find their usual roosting-place, and were discovered 
the next morning out of doors, half-buried in the 
snow. At one time there was thunder and wind, but 
later the night became still, and the moon, though 
unseen, covered all with a soft light. By this time 
the snow was from three to four inches deep, and there 
was a considerable drift in the lanes. The landscape 



November. 255 



was transformed ; all was beautiful ; there were no 
blots. In the garden we had the loveliest and most 
fairy-like scene of all the year. The larger trees were 
each of them marked by a strip of white along the 
north side of the bole ; but the branches were entirely 
covered. Every tree, however, retained its own 
characteristics ; some — the evergreens especially — 
being heavily laden, while others were only lightly 
covered and showed the tracing of each twig and 
spine distinct and clear. The vistas were especially 
beautiful, and could only be likened to the corridors 
in some great palace of frost. In the early morning, 
the snow having ceased, and the clouds cleared away, 
the moon broke forth with great brilliancy, and then 
the landscape, as seen from the windows, was of a 
delicate blue colour, rather than white. 

For all this exhilaration of spirit and exaltation 
of fancy we had to suffer the next morning. The 
sun rose in a yellow haze and the sad change had 
already come. On the flat lawn close by the house 
the snow was still white and unbroken, as it will be 
for some days ; but the undulating fields beyond were 
already ridged with black, and were seen fading into 
a dreary distance where the grey earth and the grey 
sky, like Old Age and Death, meet together and are 
made one in an uncomplaining sadness. 



256 Country Pleasures, 

At breakfast our feathered pensioners, the robins 
and the sparrows, were more numerous than usual ; 
and, although the crumbs sank into the snow, they 
were deft enough to pick them out. It is interesting 
to observe what fantastic things the birds will do. A 
day or two ago I saw a sparrow clinging by its claws 
to the perpendicular wall of the barn, apparently in 
order that it might conceal itself from another bird 
which was sitting just above on the projecting eaves, 
and who ultimately, by bending over, found where its 
mate was hiding. The two then flew away together. 
But still more singular was a sight in the garden on 
the same morning. A small green linnet was sitting 
on a ledge underneath the roof of a low building, 
level with the eye, and either regaling himself or 
amusing himself by catching in his mouth, as they 
fell one by one, the drops of melted snow. 

To-night the frost has returned with great sharp- 
ness ; the sky, swept by the wind, is preternaturally 
clear ; the stars beat as if they would leap from their 
places ; and the snow, which has been re-frozen, 
glitters like diamonds on the roofs and on the ground. 



November. 257 



XLV.—TI/E CLOUGH. 

November 19. 

The Clough is a kind of larger Glen — a kloof or 
cleft in the ground, and lying below the general level 
of the country. It is wilder than the Glen ; but it 
has suffered much during the last few years, being 
less carefully preserved. If we start from our own 
garden and strike straight across the fields, the dis- 
tance to the nearest edge of the Clough would be a 
little over half a mile. Speaking roughly, it runs 
from north-east to west, and its length is about a mile 
and a half. It is partly in our own parish, that of 
Moston, and partly in the ancient township of Blackley. 

In a Survey taken in 1322, the fifteenth year of 
Edward II., it is said that — ' The park of Blakelegh 
is worth in pannage, eyrie of eagles, herons and 
hawks, honey-bees, mineral earths, ashes, and other 
issues, fifty- three shillings and fourpence. The vesture 
of oaks, with the whole coverture, is worth 200 marks 
(133/. 6s. 8d.) in the gross. It contains seven miles 
in circumference, together with two deer-leaps of the 
king's grant.' 

One of these ' deer-leaps ' was the Clough of which 
we are speaking. The most accessible mode of entry 
is from the high road which runs through Rochdale 

s 



258 Country Pleasures. 

into the county of York. About half a mile south of 
the village of Blackley, you come upon a sharp 
descent, down which the country waggons, returning 
home, always rumble with the break on their wheels. 
It is a picturesque bit of road — picturesque, but diffi- 
cult. In severe winters when the ground was slippery 
I have seen it quite impassable ; once I remember 
the snow had to be cleared away by gangs of men, 
and was piled up on each side to the height of ten or 
twelve feet. Just at this point, where there is a 
populous rookery on the left hand, a lane on the right 
runs eastward into the Clough. It looks like a private 
way, and is very tempting to the passer-by. On one 
side there is a green hollow, on the other a steep 
bank ; and, as the trees, though not large, are thickly 
grown, you get a winding avenue which in the summer- 
time is pleasantly chequered with light and shade. 

In going from our own house, however, we cross 
the fields and enter by another way, which, leading 
between high banks of sand, plunges at once into the 
midst of the ravine. On this side of the Clough we 
pass the ancient house which is known as Hough 
Hall. It is now surrounded by modern dwellings, but 
it still retains something of its ancient appearance, 
having pointed gables and a black-and-white timbered 
front. In the reign of Henry VIII. it was the resi- 



November. 259 



dence of George Halgh, Gentleman, whose widow 
married Sir John Byron, of the adjoining parish of 
Clayton. Sir John was probably an ancestor of the 
poet, and seems to have anticipated the irregularities, 
if not the genius, of his illustrious descendant. 

Standing now in the Clough-Bottom, by the edge 
of a little stream, one sees how wild and beautiful the 
place has once been. The ground rises sharply on 
every side, and the brook, winding and turning about, 
makes many a little gorge and headland. All the 
elements of the picturesque are present ; but the 
scene has been rudely dealt with by man : and the 
loose nature of the soil on the steep banks has caused 
most of the finest trees to fall. 

Our recollections of the Clough go back to our 
earliest years. In boyhood it was the home of almost 
all our romance. Here the eternal friendships of 
adolescence were made ; and here, too, those more 
tender attachments — long, long forgotten — had their 
beginnings. It was in the Clough, also, that we first 
learned to feel that reverence and love for all the 
changing aspects of nature, whether great or small, 
which have since been able to lead us on from 'joy 
to joy,' and which have helped to form in us that — 

Cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
Is full of blessings. 

s 2 



260 Country Pleasures. 

We came here for our sunsets and sunrisings — 
nowhere could they be better seen — and not unfre- 
quently, for the sake of snatching a fearful pleasure, 
we have ventured into the haunted recesses of the 
Clough in the depth of midnight. In spring the 
banks were then covered with the anemone, the 
hyacinth, and the stellaria : in summer, when the 
ground was thick with ferns, the honeysuckle went 
gadding about among the wild roses ; in the autumn 
we gathered blackberries — the nuts were gone even 
in my time — and in winter, when the old-fashioned 
weather was on, and the brook could be heard tink- 
ling under the ice, the snow pictures were finer here 
than anywhere else. Before we had ever seen a 
mountain we simulated Alpine terrors among the 
sandy scaurs, making believe in dizzy precipices over 
which we were accustomed to hang suspended from 
some projecting branch ; and, as for cataracts, we 
made them ourselves by damming up the stream, 
where it was narrowest, with stones and the roots of 
trees. 

Westward from this point the Clough widens into 
a green glade ; and if we were to follow the path 
which meanders along the turf, we should come to 
a farmhouse standing at the end of the avenue of 
trees already mentioned. Samuel Bamford, writing 



November. 261 



more than thirty years ago, describes the glade, and 
makes it the scene of a wild story, intended to illus- 
trate the superstitious belief, common in Lancashire, 
that whoever is able to gather the seed of the St. 
John's Fern, at midnight on the eve of St. John's Day, 
with certain cabalistic ceremonies, will have power 
to command the affections of an unwilling damsel. 
'About half-way up this kloof is an open cleared 
space of green and short sward ; it is probably two 
hundred yards in length, by sixty in width ; and 
passing along it from Blackley, a group of fine oaks 
appears on a slight eminence, a little to the left. 
This part of the grove was, at the time we are con- 
cerned with, much more crowded with underwood 
than at present. The bushes were then. close and 
strong ; fine sprouts of " yerth groon " hazel and ash 
were common as nuts ; whilst a thick bush of bramble, 
wild rose, and holly, gave the spot the appearance of 
a place inclosed and set apart for mysterious conceal- 
ment. Intermingled with these almost impervious 
barriers were tufts of tall green fern, curling and 
bending gracefully ; and a little separate from them, 
and nearer the old oaks, might be observed a few 
fern clumps of a singular appearance ; of a paler 
green than the others, — with a flatter and a broader 
leaf, — sticking up, rigid and expanded, like something 



262 Country Pleasures. 

stark with mute terror. These were " Saint John's 
Fearn." ' 

Turning eastward, the Clough narrows, and the 
path becomes difficult, being sometimes obstructed 
by fallen trees, and sometimes breaking off altogether 
in consequence of a slip in the land. It is best, there- 
fore, to keep by the brookside crossing and re-crossing 
from time to time. In a little while a lofty and 
picturesque knoll rises in front of you, and seems to 
bar farther progress. Here, indeed, what is usually 
known as The Clough comes to an end ; but by a 
little scrambling you may get into a contributory 
dingle which runs on still farther for about half a- 
mile, and finally loses itself in the level fields. In 
this dingle there are yet some of the rarer wild 
flowers to be found ; and here, in the long summer 
evenings, far away from intruders and all the noise of 
the town, you may often come across one of those 
Lancashire working botanists — quiet and unobtrusive 
creatures — who, like the plants they seek, are, it is 
to be feared, becoming every year increasingly un- 
common. 

Returning from the dingle we climb the knoll ; 
and here, on the summit, and curiously near the pre- 
cipitous edge, is the lonely farmhouse which gives 
the place its name — Boggart Hole Clough, the 



November. 26 







Boggart Clough in fact, ' hole ' and ' clough ' being 

one of those duplications so common in all languages. 

The legend attached to this house will be found 

under the title of ' The Bar-Gaist ' in the first volume 

of Roby's 'Traditions of Lancashire.' Although 

appearing with Roby's own work it was really written 

by Crofton Croker, the well-known author of 'The 

Fairy Legends.' The salient points of the story are 

concisely put in Tennyson's ' Walking to the Mail ' : — 

His house, for so they say, 
Was haunted with a jolly ghost, that shook 
The curtains, whined in lobbies, tapt at doors, 
And rummaged like a rat : no servant stay'd : 
The farmer vext packs up his beds and chairs, 
And all his household stuff; and with his boy 
Betwixt his knees, his wife upon the tilt, 
Sets out, and meets a friend who hails him, ' What ! 
You're flitting ! ' ' Yes, we're flitting,' says the ghost, 
(For they had pack'd the thing among the beds,) 
* Oh, well,' says he, ' you flitting with us too — 
Jack, turn the horses' heads and home again.' 

The farmer who was the victim of the pranks of this 
Robin Goodfellow, this ' drudging goblin ' and 
' lubber fiend ' as Milton puts it, has been long gone ; 
and his successors are gone too, for the house is now 
untenanted save by the rats and the birds, and is fast 
falling into decay. Its antiquity is proved by the 
nature of the building, for the walls, in some parts at 
least, are of what was called ' rubble and daub ' — 



264 Country Pleasures. 

loose stones covered with plaster and intermingled 
with beams of wood In the grey November even- 
ing, with the mist beginning to fill the Clough and 
already lying along the fields, it looks, as a haunted 
house should, both weird and uncanny. The fences 
are thrown down ; the trim garden has become a 
wilderness ; all signs of life have disappeared, the 
windows are blocked with wood, the doers are made 
fast with nails, the hearth is cold and the fire will 
never be kindled upon it again. The Bar-Gaist was 
a homely sprite ; and, as this is a home no longer, he 
is gone too. By climbing we manage to look into 
one of the deserted and empty chambers. The walls 
are ragged, the narrow stairs are broken, the roof 
lets in the sky, and we feel that even the presence of a 
goblin would make the place more cheerful than it 
now is. 

Leaving the Clough, and crossing a few fields, we 
come to Booth Hall, an old mansion which bears the 
date of 1640. Humphrey Booth, the builder of the 
house, founded the Trinity Church in Salford ; and 
left sundry legacies ' to the poor for ever.' That 
quaint chronicler, Hollingworth, says of him that, 
1 Being in great weakness, he earnestly desired that 
he might live to see the chapel finished, which he 
did ; but immediately after the solemn dedication of 



November. 265 



it by the Bishop of Chester he more apparently 
weakened ; then he earnestly begged that he might 
partake of the Lord's Supper there, and then he 
would not wish to live longer. It pleased God to 
revive him in such a measure as that he was able to 
go to the chapel constantly till he was partaker of 
the Supper (which could not be done of some months 
after the consecration) in the chapel, and was never 
able to go forth after, nor scarce to get home. He 
was a man just in his trading, generous in entertain- 
ment of any gentlemen of quality that came to the 
town, though mere strangers to him ; bountiful to the 
Church and poor ; and faithful to his friend.' 

The lights are already glimmering in the windows 
of Booth Hall when we turn homeward. Our nearest 
way is through a branch of Boggart-Hole locally 
known as Oliver's Clough. This is really the finest 
part of the whole ravine, and has suffered least. The 
trees are many of them noble in their proportions ; 
and, as the path is carried along the high ground, 
you look through the tree trunks to the brook which 
runs at a great depth below. When we reach the 
open glade the twilight has already fallen, and we 
can hear the birds fluttering low among the trees. 
At the entrance to the Clough we meet a group of 
children who are making for home. They huddle 



266 Country Pleasures. 

together, and hurry past with scared faces. Proba- 
bly they are still believers in the existence of the 
Boggart. 



XLVI.— NOVEMBER FOG. 

November 27. 

ABOUT the middle of the month, and after the snow 
had departed, there came some days of cheerful 
weather. It seemed as though November were about 
to pass by without its usual concomitant of fog. 
There were at this time several bright mornings, on 
which we comforted ourselves by observing how 
much of autumnal beauty was left us even in the 
midst of this wintry month. * The country,' we 
said, ' is always beautiful ; look how tender, even 
now, is the colour of the grass, and how delicately it 
changes in the lights and shadows along the undu- 
lating ground, and on the broken acclivity of the dell ; 
and the trees, though almost entirely leafless, do they 
not give, with a blue or even a soft grey sky above 
them, such an infinite repetition and variety of form, 
and such a picture of free development on the lines of 
rigid order as is not to be seen even in summer ? ' 
And each morning there was the waning moon in the 
south-west, a thin crescent, pale, and only distinguish- 



November. 267 



able from the surrounding clouds by its greater definite- 
ness of form. Is there any other ponderable and em- 
bodied thing which presents so ethereal an aspect as 
this ? 

On the nineteenth, however, after hoar frost in the 
morning, the day became warm ; and then began the 
plague of mist and fog which has hardly left us 
since. Few things are more monotonous than a fog, 
and yet even that has its changes. Day after day we 
have had all sorts, both as to density and colour. 
The hues have been as various, in fact, as those of 
the rats in 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' — brown 
fogs and black fogs, grey fogs and tawny fogs. For 
many days we have seen no sun, nor even had any 
hint of the sky ; the lights have not been put out at 
noon ; in the evening the most familiar paths have 
seemed strange and dubious; and at midnight men 
have lost their bearings and have wandered about the 
country for hours. 

Nothing produces so many unearthly effects as a 
thick fog. As you walk among the trees they seem 
to move past you ; if you stand still and look up, the 
higher branches are far away and the top is lost in a 
strange distance ; but the most curious thing of all is 
to see a lantern moved about in a grove — then long 
shafts- of light and shadow dart out and are suddenly 



268 Country Pleasures, 

withdrawn, and move over each other in a way that is 
utterly bewildering. If, as has been recently the case, 
a slight frost accompanies the fog during the night, we 
see in the morning one of the most wretched prospects 
of the year. Everything is dank and miserable ; on 
the pond there is a thin coat of ice, broken and ragged 
at the edges, and the water, where it is seen, has neither 
brightness nor transparency ; the birds hover about 
as if their wings were pasted ; on all the hedges the 
fog is seen to have been congealed in black drops ; 
and along the fences it lies in a dusky deposit which 
shocks you because it is so unlike the usual white and 
powdery rime. 

Our English poets may be trusted as to the 
character and associations of fog. They know the 
appearance, alas, but too well ! When we are to 
' sup full with horrors ' we begin with a fog. In 
that elvish chorus with which our direst Tragedy 
opens the hags are heard singing — 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair : 

Hover through the fog and filthy air ; 

and when the Thane's wife, in the most terrible 
speech ever put into the mouth of a woman, calls 
upon the ' thick night ' to hide itself, we know that 
she is thinking of a fog when she says — 



November. 269 



Pall thee in the dunnest smoke of he'll, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
To cry 'Hold, hold!' 

Milton, in ' Comus,' speaks of ' black usurping mists ' 

that dam up the influence of moon and stars ; and in 

the same poem he calls the fog ' bleak and unkindly.' 

Shelley, as one might expect, seems to have felt 

keenly the pressure of fog. In his ' Autumn : A 

Dirge,' he calls on the winter months to follow the 

dead year — 

Come, months, come away ; 
Put on white, black, and grey, 
Let your light sisters play- 
Ye, follow the bier 
Of the dead cold year, 
And make her grave green with tear on tear. 

The ' white black, and grey,' I take it, are the fogs 

of winter. In ' A Vision of the Sea,' the same poet 

depicts — 

A lead-coloured fog gathered up from the deep, 
Whose breath was quick pestilence ; 

and again, in ' The Sensitive Plant,' we find the 
following description of what we have recently suf- 
fered — 

Hour by hour, when the air was still, 
The vapours arose which have strength to kill : 
At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, 
At night they were darkness no star could melt. 



270 Country Pleaszires. 

John Clare gives us a homelier, but not less faithful 
picture ; indeed, I do not know any poet who has 
more truthfully rendered the dark and misty days of 
November : — 

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon ; 
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face 
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon, 
When done the journey of her nightly race, 
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place. 
For days the shepherds in the fields may be, 
Nor mark a patch of sky — blindfold they trace 
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree, 

Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see. 

The owlet leaves her hiding place at noon, 

And flaps her grey wings in the doubling light ; 
The hoarse jay screams to see her out so soon, 
And small birds chirp and startle with affright ; 
Much doth it scare the superstitious wight, 
Who dreams of sorry luck, and sore dismay ; 
While cow-boys think the day a dream of night, 
And oft grow fearful on their lonely way, 

Fancying that ghosts may wake, and leave their graves by day. 

To-day, a heavy wind rising in the north, the fog 
was seen rolling up its tents and stealing rapidly 
away across the fields like an evil thing affrighted by 
the honest daylight. Once more the sky was visible ; 
once more, too, it was possible to pass with pleasure 
along the garden-walks. There the circle of life 
never ceases to move round, and I saw that, even 



November. 271 



during the dark and cold days, many a new leaf had 
been springing from the earth. Under the evergreen 
bushes there are thousands of young foxglove plants 
which at first sight you would take for some new 
moss; the brown twigs of the syringa have leaf- 
buds on them ; the box and the fir are wonderfully 
fresh and green ; and there is one small purple beech 
which still furnishes a point of strong colour. 

The last flowers in the garden were the marigolds 
and the stocks ; that was at the beginning of the 
month, and there are none left now. In the green- 
house the geraniums and fuchsias still linger, and the 
new flower is the chrysanthemum. In the vinery the 
grapes are all gathered and the leaves have fallen. 
When these last had been swept up and wheeled into 
a corner I was amazed at their quantity. It is 
no wonder that the vine should stand for us as the 
emblem of fruitful abundance by reason of its luxu- 
riant leafage no less than of its grape clusters. 



272 Country Pleasures. 



DECEMBER AND JANUARY. 

As the wild air stirs and sways 
The tree-swung cradle of a child, 

So the breath of these rude days 
Rocks the year : be calm and mild, 

Trembling hours ; she will arise 
With new love within her eyes. 

January grey is here, 

Like a sexton by her grave ; 
February bears the bier, 

March with grief doth howl and rave, 
And April weeps— but, ye hours ! 
Follow with May's fairest flowers. 

P. B. Shelley, A Dirge for the Year. 

XLVll.—THE MOSS. 

Moston, December 4. 

These Notes have been taken, as the reader will 
have seen, chiefly within the fences of my own garden, 
where, indeed, I find variety enough and the pleasure 
of constant change. I have also, in order to give some 
idea of the neighbouring country, gone a little farther 
afield and sketched the Glen and the Clough. Another 
characteristic feature of the place is the Moss. In 
ancient times the parish was probably divided be- 



December. 273 



tween open moss-land and thick woods of oak ; from 
the former it took its name. In the first year of the 
fourteenth century it is spoken of as a ' hamell,' or 
hamlet of the manor of Manchester, and is on some 
account exempted from the payment of certain 
tribute to Thomas de Grelle, the lord of the manor. 
The proper designation of that which we speak of 
familiarly as ' The Moss' is the ' Whytemosse.' It 
is so called in a Survey taken in 1322. 

To reach the Moss we go due north by sundry 
devious lanes and field-paths. After we leave our 
own homestead there are but few trees ; probably 
most of them were cut down in the early part of 
the present century. We get no rich landscape, 
therefore ; no deep pasture or umbrageous wood ; and 
no wealthy and well-ordered farms. Yet the country 
is picturesque because it is broken. Even in its bare- 
ness we find, as upon the mountain-side, that quality 
which braces at once both mind and body. The 
land is, in fact, like the hardy stock, now passing 
away, but which for many centuries has lived upon 
it — a rude, stern, sagacious race ; reserved, yet 
full of mother-wit and overcharged with rough 
humour. 

We turn first by what we know as the Lily Lane. 
On one side is a pond where I remember to have 

T 



274 Country Pleasures. 

seen the lilies growing, and where, when a boy, I 
have many a time plunged into the water to capture 
them. Within the last few days snipe have been 
shot near this pond. Looking back we see that we 
are upon high ground, for a great part of the city is 
visible some three or four miles away. Standing 
here we look south-west, and on a clear summer's even- 
ing we have proof of what a glorious thing a great 
city may become when the sun is sinking behind it. 
In the early morning, before the smoke has risen, 
the hills are visible all round from Holcplme to 
Kinder Scout and Odermann ; nor is the scene less 
attractive to me if I steal out here after dark. Then 
I look abroad over what is apparently a vast and 
trackless waste, at the farther edge of which strange 
lights glimmer and are reflected in the sky. 

As we leave the lane and pass into the fields, we 
catch a sight of Lightbowne Hall. It has been much 
modernised ; but some of the old mullions remain, 
and there is still untouched a fine room panelled in 
oak from floor to ceiling. A local tradition relates 
that when the young Pretender was making his re- 
treat from Derby, one of his officers, being at Light- 
bowne. was surprised. He attempted to secrete himself 
in the angle of a large chimney which formerly stood 
by one of the gables. He was discovered, however, 



December. 275 



by the Hanoverians and shot dead in his hiding- 
place. 

The path now winds through a few fields, usually 
sown with grain, and comes out into an old road, by 
which, if we were to follow it, we might reach the 
moorland hills. 

The Moss is now in front of us, and we are stand- 
ing at Shackerley Green. Shackerley is a corruption 
of Shacklock, that being the name of an ancient family 
whose mansion was on the Green in the reign of 
Henry VIII. At a very short distance are the halls 
of Great and Little Nuthurst. At Nuthurst lived the 
Chaddertons, the Chethams, and the Sandfords. One 
of the Sandfords was Bishop of Lincoln in 1595. 
The Green is the place where Moston used to disport 
itself. Here in winter the great bonfires were made, 
and in summer the Rushbearings were held. I have 
often seen the tall Rush-cart, as it was called, swag- 
gering along the rough-paven road preceded by its 
band of Morrice-dancers. Bamford gives in his 
' Early Days ' the simple song which was usually sung 
on these occasions : — 

My new shoon they are so good, 
I could dance Morris if I would ; 
And if hat and sark be drest, 
I will dance Morris with the best. 

The Rush-cart festival is generally connected in Lan- 



276 Country Pleasures. 



cashire with the Dedication of the Parish Church ; 
and had its origin, no doubt, in the practice of strew- 
ing the floor of the sacred edifice with new rushes for 
the winter ; but in other counties the ceremony seems 
to have accompanied the Harvest Home, the cart 
being crowned with sheaves of corn instead of with 
rushes. Allowing for this difference, Herrick's descrip- 
tion of the Hock-cart would answer for our ceremony 
of Rushbearing : — 

Crown'd with the eares of corne, now come, 

And, to the pipe, sing harvest home. 

Come forth, my lord, and see the cart 

Drest up with all the country art. 

See, here a maukin, there a sheet, 

As spotless pure as it is sweet ; 

The horses, mares, and frisking fillies, 

Clad all in linen white as lilies. 

The harvest swaines and wenches bound 

For joy, to see the hock-cart crown'd. 

Considering how near we are to a great town the 
country hereabouts is curiously primitive and secluded. 
The scattered farms are mostly small. Each of them 
will be found to have about four acres of land attached 
to it, an ancient law forbidding a house to be erected 
on a smaller plot of ground unless it was intended 
for the cote or cottage of a forester, a herdsman, or a 
miner. The buildings also very closely resemble 
each other, including in nearly every case, a farmstead 



December, 2JJ 



and a loom-house. The meaning of this is that in 
winter, when rural occupations were not pressing, the 
long nights were occupied in the spinning and weaving 
of wool. 

The loneliness and isolation of the district, result- 
ing from its being far removed from any frequented 
highroad, have made it quite a stronghold of ancient 
customs and superstitions. Every lane and dingle 
and brookside had its own particular ghost or boggart, 
Phantom huntsmen were seen in the fields at twilight : 
and anyone who would rise early enough might find 
the fairy-rings on the grass. I knew an old man of 
over eighty who durst not go alone after dark over a 
certain bridge, because he believed that underneath 
its arch a whole company of water-sprites lurked 
together. In the neighbouring Clough a strange 
boggart known as Nut-Nan flitted with a shrill scream 
among the hazel bushes ; and every little pond and 
marl-pit was haunted by a spirit vaguely called ' Pit- 
mother,' which hid itself in the sedges and drew into 
the water little children as they passed by. The 
following prayer is still extant in the locality, and 
until quite recently it was actually used every night 
by an old crone before she retired to rest. The 
dialect of the prayer is that which is common in the 
district — 



278 Country Pleasures. 

Fro' o' mak o' witches an' wizarts an' weasel-skins, 

An' o' mak o' feaw black things 'ut creepen up deytches 

Wi' great lung tails — may the Lord deliver us ! 

A hundred years ago a woman living in a cottage 
on the edge of the Moss being angry with her son, 
who was idle and asleep at his loom, struck him so 
violent a blow in her anger that he never woke, but 
slipped from his seat dead on to the floor of the loom- 
house. Seeing what she had done, the poor mother 
went out and drowned herself in an adjoining pond. 
Her ghost, of course, became the terror of the hamlet. 
If the lights burned blue, ' Old Bess ' was breathing 
on them ; if the rain streamed on the leaded windows, 
she was bringing water from the pond ; and if the 
doors rattled, poor Bess wanted shelter. At length a 
parson was brought to lay the perturbed spirit : and 
he did it using a formula which indicated that the 
spell should last for so long as a certain holly by the 
edge of the pond should remain green. Two years 
ago the old holly had entirely withered, and people 
are now to be found who believe that Bess is abroad 
once more. 

Besides these terrible spirits there are the harmless 
fairies, or * little men ' as they are familiarly called. 
Of these there is a pleasant story current, and im- 
plicitly believed. A man, who was ploughing at 



December. 279 



nightfall, thought he saw something strange at the 
end of one of his furrows. He stopped his horses, and 
beheld three little men, dressed in green and wearing 
cock's feathers in their hats, dancing on the loam. 
Upon this he hid himself, and then the green men 
brought out a small bake-spittle — a wooden shovel for 
turning cakes in the oven — and laying it on the ground 
went away. When the ploughman approached he 
found it was broken ; whereupon he mended it with 
some nails he had in his pocket, and then went on with 
his ploughing. When he came to the end of another 
furrow he found the spittle had gone, and in place was 
a tiny vessel no bigger than a lady's thimble. Although 
so small it was shaped and coloured exactly like the 
brown earthenware jug out of which the ploughman 
usually drank his ale, and the foam was curling over 
the edge as if it had been freshly drawn from some 
fairy barrel. He took it up and drank ; and lo ! it 
lasted as long as if it had been a good gallon or more. 
He had tasted the fairy-brewing, and ever afterwards 
no man could equal him in ploughing, and all his life 
he prospered. 

That part of the Moss which we have now reached 
is still unreclaimed, and we walk by the edge of deep 
trenches, and past big stacks of black peat. The wind 
is like that which blows from off the sea ; and, as the 



280 Country Pleasures, 

night is coming on, the distance might easily be mis- 
taken for a waste of waters. The frequent cry of the 
lapwing and a light moving up and down, as in a boat, 
help the illusion. Now, in the winter, and at dusk, it 
is a wild and lonely scene, and we hasten towards the 
more frequented road. In the spring, however, no 
place is more cheerful, for then one can hear more 
larks singing and soaring at one time than can be 
heard almost anywhere else ; and in summer, when 
the hay harvest is just over, we are accustomed to get 
much pleasant festivity of the rural sort at an old farm 
which lies near to where a stream flows off the Moss 
and down into that haunted Clough, of which I have 
written before. 



XLVIII.— WINTER IN THE LAKE COUNTRY. 

December 10. 

In the beginning of March I gave some notes of a 
short sojourn which we were able to make in a country 
house among the mountains of Westmoreland. It was 
then the season of very early spring ; and, being accus- 
tomed to the Lake Country only in the autumn, it was 
a great pleasure to see it for once in its vernal dress; 
nor has it been less interesting to visit the same scene 
once more and to seek acquaintance with another un- 
familiar aspect— that of mid-winter. 



December, 281 



I need not again describe the old house in which 
we found ourselves after a day's travel ; but when we 
had looked at our comfortable chambers, in which, 
thanks to somebody's kindly thoughtfulness, there 
were cheerful fires burning, and had come down to 
dinner — an old-fashioned dinner in an old-fashioned 
room — we could not but consider ourselves wonder- 
fully fortunate in having again found quarters in such 
a delightful mansion. It was not only that the room 
itself looked like a home — warm, and on every hand 
suggestive of comfort, softly lighted by a lamp and 
by candles which glimmered in their quaint silver 
sticks and threw a flickering light on the ancient 
pictures which grace the walls — but there was the 
feeling of where this room was ; and of what we 
knew to be outside those closed shutters — a scene 
which is among the loveliest in England, a great 
mountain, a deep and still lake, the woods, the fells, 
the garden with its banks of laurel, the sheepfold 
and the farmstead, and all this under a brilliant 
moon, and far removed from any town — nay, even 
miles away from the neighbourhood of either hamlet 
or village. 

As we sat round the fire, far on into the night, we 
talked of how by one conveyance or another, and by 
the help of our own good legs, we had at length 



282 Country Pleasures. 

brought ourselves to where we were. In the morning, 
at Moston, there was only a slight frost, but it was of 
that black and dry kind which usually lasts, and we 
were encouraged to start upon our journey. Once 
outside the veil of smoke which surrounds our great 
city, we began to see what a glorious day we were to 
have. We talk of winter being cheerless ; why, the 
sun was more dazzlingly bright than we remembered 
to have seen it all through the summer. The sky by 
this time had put on a stainless blue ; and as the 
train darted through the copses and past the little 
orchard plots, we could see how beautifully the tree 
stems were covered with pure green moss. At More- 
cambe we came in sight of the sea. The tide was 
rippling across the bay, and flocks of sheep were 
cropping the turf on the shore. We looked again and 
again at the colour of the sky and of the water, and 
after much careful comparison and discussion we 
came to the conclusion that, sitting out of the wind, 
not feeling the cold therefore, and judging by the eye 
alone, it would be impossible to say that the prospect 
before us was not that of summer. Turning inland, 
however, I should add that winter — the beauty of 
winter — was visible. The nearer hills along the 
romantic valley of the Kent had their belts of green 
holly and their russet patches of fallen bracken ; but 



December. 283 

the higher and more distant mountains to our great 
delight were seen to be wearing their grey capes of 
snow — grey, not white, be it observed. This was 
what we had come to see, and therefore we were 
already satisfied. At Grange-in-Cartmel we found 
the people skating on the shallow flats by the shore ; 
and although it was but a little past noon, the sun 
was already getting low and the look of the west 
across the Bay was singularly like that of evening. 
At Newby Bridge — surely one of the sweetest places 
in the land, and endeared to us by many pleasant 
recollections — we all concurred in the opinion that 
the tints of the landscape were those that were known 
to us as autumnal. The brown leaves were still hang- 
ing thickly on the beeches, the hills were red with 
ferns, and that river-like strip of water which is the 
beginning of Windermere, could never have been 
brighter or more blue. 

At what is called Lake-side we took the steamer, 
and began our voyage of fourteen miles. As we pace 
the clean little deck we say to each other, ' How 
unlike this is to all our usual ideas of winter ! ' The 
sunlight was so strong that where the rays fell on the 
Lake there was a line too brilliant to be looked at ; 
and on each side of the boat the spray from the 
paddle-wheels made continuous rainbows. After we 



284 Country Pleastires. 

pass Bowness and come into the higher and most 
northern reach of the Lake a fierce wind sweeps 
down from the hills and the cold becomes intense. 
Everybody takes refuge now in the cabin except our- 
selves and a hardy- looking Westmoreland girl, who 
carries in her hand a bunch of flowers which rival in 
colour the healthy posy of her own face. As we 
come near to Waterhead, the waves are big, though 
blue ; and the crests of them are caught by the gust 
and blown over the boat. In the west we see the 
Coniston Old Man, a clear and knife-like ridge ; in 
front we make out Bowfell and the familiar forms of 
the Langdale Tikes ; and a little to the right there 
are the long steps of High Street and the round 
summit of Fairfield. All these loftier hills are 
whitened at the top, Fairfield in this respect being 
especially beautiful, the snow fading softly away at 
the edge of the basin under the peak and mingling 
gradually with the red and green on the lower part of 
the mountain. Loughrigg and Wansfell are quite 
free from snow, and the latter is remarkably verdant. 
As we passed through Ambleside we noticed that 
the place retained its cheerful appearance though 
there was none of the usual autumnal bustle. After 
looking at the ' Salutation ' for the sake of old times 
we pushed rapidly forward. In the fading light 



December. 285 



Rydal Mere looked beautiful as ever. Some of the 
bays were already frozen over, and along the margin 
we noticed many tall flowered reeds, which waved 
gracefully in the wind, and reminded us of the well- 
known lines about the Osmunda : — 

Plant lovelier, in its own retired abode 
On Grasmere's beach, than Naiad by the side 
Of Grecian brook, or Lady of the Mere, 
Sole-sitting by the shores of old romance. 

When we reached Grasmere it was a little after three 
o'clock, and the sun had already fallen behind the 
hills. The crimson flush of sunset still lingered on 
the snow-clad summits, but the bases of the moun- 
tains were already in deep shadow. As we walked 
merrily along the hard and frozen roads, and heard 
the sharp sound of our footsteps echoing among the 
hills, we naturally recalled that inimitable sketch of 
Winter in the Lake Country which occurs in the 
'Prelude : ' — 

And in the frosty season, when the sun 
Was set, and visible for many a mile 
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, 
I heeded not their summons : happy time 
It was indeed for ail of us — for me 
It was a time of rapture ! Clear and loud 
The village clock tolled six, — I wheeled about, 
Proud and exulting like an untired horse 
That cares not for his home. . . . 
So through the darkness and the cold we flew 



286 Country Pleasures. 

And not a voice was idle ; with the din 
Smitten, the precipices rang aloud ; 
The leafless trees and every icy crag 
Tinkled like iron ; while far distant hills 
Into the tumult sent an alien sound 
Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars 
Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west 
The orange sky of evening died away. 

The twilight is deepening as we climb the ascent 

of Dunmail Raise, and at five o'clock we see the 

moon rise over the shoulder of Helvellyn and silver 

the farther bank of Thirlmere. And so we come at 

last into that quiet and delightful refuge which has 

already been introduced to the reader, and where we 

slept : — 

Lulled by sound 
Of far-off torrents charming the still night ; 
And to tired limbs and over-busy thoughts 
Inviting sleep and soft forgetfulness. 



XLIX.— WINTER IN THE LAKE COUNTRY 
(continued). 

December 17. 

IN the Poems of Wordsworth there are not, besides 
the one already quoted, many conspicuous pictures 
of Winter. The dedication of the ' Duddon Sonnets ' 
to his brother furnishes one which has become 



December. 287 



classical, and which is also characteristic of the Lake 
Country. These are the two first stanzas : — 

The Minstrels played their Christmas tune 
To-night beneath my cottage-eaves ; 
While, smitten by a lofty moon, 
The encircling laurels, thick with leaves, 
Gave back a rich and dazzling sheen, 
That overpowered their natural green. 

Through hill and valley every breeze 

Had sunk to rest with folded wings : 

Keen was the air, but could net freeze 

Nor check the music of the strings ; 

So stout and hardy were the band 

That scraped the chords with strenuous hand ! 

During our stay at Thirlmere I often thought of 
these lines, for we had the ' lofty moon ' each night, 
and the 'encircling laurels' looking as white as if they, 
like the hills behind them, had been covered with 
snow. In the same poem there is the following : — 

How touching, when, at midnight, sweep 
Snow-munied winds, and all is dark, 
To hear — and sink again to sleep ! 
Or, at an earlier call, to mark, 
By blazing fire, the still suspense 
Of self-complacent innocence. 

* Snow-muffled winds ' has often seemed to me a 
singular expression ; but knowing how careful an 
observer of nature Wordsworth was, and how much he 
had of that sympathetic insight which is almost un- 



Country Pleasures. 



erring, I felt sure that he had good reason for using 
the phrase. I was therefore not surprised to hear, as 
I walked after sunset on the terrace in front of the 
house, a strange and unusual sound made by the wind 
as it came down to me across the snow-covered breast 
of Helvellyn. It was indeed just what the poet says 
— ' muffled/ an ' eerie sough,' a subdued sob, the 
undertone of a covered string. 

If, however, we have not in Wordsworth's poetry 
so frequent a presentation of Winter as we might 
expect, there is one passage by him in prose which 
makes an ample recompense. It appears in that 
i Description of the Country of the Lakes in the North 
of England ' which, though published so early as 1810, 
is superior to anything which has been written on the 
same subject. As it was this particular passage — 
known and pondered upon for many years — which 
sent us to the Lake Country at this unusual season 
and as it is at once excellent in expression and deli- 
cately true, the reader will pardon a somewhat copious 
extract : — ' Those who have studied the appearances 
of nature, feel that the superiority, in point of visual 
interest, of mountainous over other countries — is more 
strikingly displayed in winter than in summer. This, 
as must be obvious, is partly owing to the forms of 
the mountains, which, of course, are not affected by 



December. 289 



the seasons ; but also, in no small degree, to the greater 
variety that exists in their winter than their summer 
colouring. This variety is such, and so harmoniously 
preserved, that it leaves little cause of regret when the 
splendour of autumn is passed away. The oak- 
coppices upon the sides of the mountains, retain rus- 
set leaves, the birch stands conspicuous with its silver 
stem and puce-coloured twigs ; the hollies, with green 
leaves and scarlet berries, have come forth to view from 
among the deciduous trees, whose summer foliage had 
concealed them ; the ivy is now plentifully apparent 
upon the stems and boughs of the trees, and among the 
woody rocks. In place of the uniform summer-green 
of the herbage and fern, many rich colours play into 
each other over the surface of the mountains ; turf (the 
tints of which are interchangeably tawny green, olive, 
and brown), beds of withered fern, and grey rocks being 
harmoniously blended together. The mosses and 
lichens are never so fresh and flourishing as in winter, 
if it be not a season of frost ; and their minute 
beauties prodigally adorn the foreground. Wherever 
we turn, we find these productions of nature, to which 
winter is rather favourable than unkindly, scattered 
over the walls, banks of earth, rocks, and stones, and 
upon the trunks of trees with the intermixture of 
several species of small fern, now green and fresh ; 

U 



290 Country Pleasures. 

and, to the observing passenger, their forms and 
colours are a source of inexhaustible admiration. 
Add to this the hoar-frost and snow, with all the 
varieties they create and which volumes would not be 
sufficient to describe.' Now all this is just what we 
have been witnessing ; not a single detail is exagger- 
ated ; it is simply a faithful picture of what the Lake 
Country is on those days of winter which are not 
deformed by mist or rain. 

Besides the unexpected splendour and harmony 
of colour which one finds, there are other things 
which should be noted, as making it worth while to 
brave the cold of the mountains at this time. The 
air is clearer and more exhilarating than in the 
autumn ; it is possible to travel much further without 
fatigue ; the frequent and troublesome tracts of 
marshy land on the fell-tops are now frozen hard, 
and may be crossed without apprehension ; the views 
are more detailed, as well as more extensive ; and, 
although it is true the days are short, yet by break- 
fasting early and dining late you may have all the 
daylight in the open air, and find the time long 
enough for a walk which will sufficiently exhaust 
your power of endurance. And if, as in our case, it 
be the time of the full moon, you may, in the valleys 
at least, take long excursions after dark. 



December. 291 



As Thirlmere runs pretty nearly from south to 
north, it follows that either bank catches respectively 
the rising or the setting lights. Helvellyn on the 
eastern side is illuminated in the evening ; Armboth 
Fell, which is on the west, is silvered by the rising 
moon, and reddened by the sun in the morning. 
This latter aspect was very striking. At nine o'clock, 
the sun being invisible to us, we saw the precipitous 
Fell become gradually ensanguined ; the ground, 
the rocks, the fir-plantations and the faded ferns were 
all subdued, rather, I should say, were all heightened 
to one brilliant tone. After clearing the frost-tracery 
from the windows, we could see all this from within ; 
and when we came outside we could discern also 
that fresh snow had fallen on the hill-tops during the 
night, that the sky was clearing itself of cloud, and 
that towards Keswick especially it was already of a 
light and eager blue. We decided, therefore, to start 
at once for the hills. It was a cherished wish that 
we should, if possible, penetrate, even in this wintry 
time, into one of those lesser valleys, more remote 
still, and more primitive than that in which we al- 
ready were. We wished to see what kind of solitary 
life was led by the people in these places during the 
months of winter ; and we chose Watendlath as best 
suited to our purpose. 

u 2 



292 Country Pleasures. 

We start from Armboth Hall, and note, as part of 
our winter-picture, that a climbing rose is still bloom- 
ing freely on the trellised wall of the house. The 
Fell is close behind ; and, just at this point, it is 
broken by a ravine along which there is a practicable 
path. You pass first through a little wood. The 
stream, though half-frozen, is still chattering among 
the big boulders. There is no lack of beautiful colour, 
for there are many tall green firs, and the hollies are 
both numerous and large. Even the leafless trees 
are attractive, for their bark is either white and clean 
or covered with tender moss ; and at the bottom, 
near the water, there is a mountain-ash still bravely 
adorned with scarlet berries. We have no need to 
hurry, and so we linger long in the wood, looking 
often backward to the blue lake which is seen now 
through the tree stems. 

When we emerge from the wood we keep to the 
south bank of the stream. It is stiff climbing now, 
and we often pause to look round at the prospect. 
We find it a perfect paradise of what the painters 
call low tones — tones softened, subdued, melting into 
each other, and always in unbroken harmony. The 
bracken is dead, but the hard-fern is yet unfaded and 
all the mosses and lichens are green and grey on the 
rocks ; the rocks themselves being also green and 



December. 29, 



grey, but in endless variety of shade. Near the top 
we notice the fine stag's-horn moss and the juniper 
with its blue berries. Away in the north is Blen- 
cathra, one of the most striking mountain-masses in 
the district — a range of sharp buttresses covered 
about half-way down with deep and unbroken snow, 
the lower portion being tinged with a warm brown. 
The higher we ascend the more keen is the frost. 
The streams are all sealed up and silent now ; but 
under the clear ice — so clear that although it is many 
inches thick it looks like water — we can see the 
little leaves and the blades of grass quite fresh and 
green. 

On the top of the Fell the snow begins to thicken, 
and there are great frozen banks of it in the hollows 
and under the peat-cuttings. The path disappears ; 
but we make for a cairn of stones in the centre of the 
waste, and then cast about for Watendlath. To the 
south are the desolate hills which rise above Easdale ; 
north is a strip of Basenthwaite Lake and the peak 
of Skiddaw ; and in the west the grand ranges of 
Borrowdale ; but there is no sign of a human dwelling 
such as we expected to make out when we reached 
the summit. At length we discover a path rising up 
a steep hill far away in front of us, and we conclude 
that, although Watendlath is invisible, this track 



294 Country Pleasures. 

must indicate its neighbourhood. Taking it for a 
mark, we strike towards it across the trackless 
moorland. In a little while we meet a shepherd, and 
he tells us that we are in the right direction ; 
Watendlath, still unseen, is under the brow of the 
steep Fell which we are now crossing, and the path 
we see is that which rises from it and leads over into 
Rosthwaite. If we hold straight on and go down by 
a ' fir-planting,' as he calls it, we shall drop into the 
hamlet we are in search of. This shepherd is a fine 
fellow, tall and lithe, and characteristic of the country ; 
clear and healthy both in mind and body — a man 
without disguises. He is going with his dog to 
Wythburn to bring back two strayed sheep of which 
he has heard. It is a long way, truly ; and it will be 
deep night before he regains his home; but he sees 
no sign of storm and there will be plenty of moon- 
light, and he knows all the way. As we watch this 
good shepherd disappear across the mountain, bent 
upon his long journey thither and back, is it unnatural 
that we should fall to thinking of that Good Shep- 
herd — the great seeker of the lost, whose words have 
comforted and will comfort humanity in every age ? 
1 How little changed,' we said, ' are the universal 
sources of imagery ; and how enduring the few simple 
facts which lie at the root of man's spiritual nature ! ' 



December. 295 



The descent into Watendlath is very steep and 
slippery, and more than once our feet are taken from 
under us. What a wild and lonely place it is — hidden 
away in its own narrow gorge between the larger 
vales of Thirlmere and Borrowdale ! There it is — four 
solitary farms, and no more ; two clumps of gaunt 
firs ; a score or two of pollard willows, and a small 
frozen tarn. On no side is there access or departure 
except by stiff climbing. 

In one of the farms we find an unaffected welcome 
and honest fare — bread and butter, oaten cake, milk 
and cheese. Our hostess, we discover, is the wife of 
the shepherd whom we met on the Fell. A visitor 
in winter is a rare thing, and she is glad to talk with 
us freely as we sit round the comfortable fire. They 
have seven hundred sheep on their farm ; the sheep 
are let with the land and when their lease expires 
they must deliver up the same number to the land- 
lord. If there is improvement or deterioration in the 
stock there will be compensation paid or demanded 
accordingly. Their sheep feed on the Watendlath 
side of the Fell, and go up to where the water falls. 
Other flocks are on the Armboth side. ' How,' we 
ask, c can they know their own sheep ? ' ' They are 
all marked,' she says, 'each farm has its own mark, 
and these are registered in what is called a Shepherd's 



296 Country Pleasures. 

book! Their mark is, first, a peculiar cut on the ear 
called ' spoon-shank^ and next the ' stnitl of red colour 
on the wool, one dab being put upon a wether and 
two on the ' gimmer ' sheep, or ewes. While we are 
talking a lame old man totters into the house. He 
will have been in Watendlath sixty years come next 
Lady-day. He is the politician and reading-man of 
the little community. He has two sons in America. 
Many people send him newspapers, and he reads all 
day and can see without ' glasses.' The Shepherd's wife 
evidently regards his great learning partly with admira- 
tion, partly with amusement. She knows nothing 
of politics — she leaves all that to John Green. 

We might have spent hours in the pleasant farm- 
kitchen, but we knew how soon the night would fall, 
and must needs be gone. W T hen we are half-way up 
the Fell-side on our return, it is a little after two 
o'clock, and already the light of evening is in the air. 
It seems as if all the hamlet is out sliding on the 
blue tarn. We can hear the cocks crowing, and the 
voices of women and children, and even the plough- 
boy's shoon grinding on the ice. The shepherd's wife, 
though a staid matron, is sliding too ; we know her 
by her red kerchief and can hear her shrill scream 
and the laughter of the children when she falls full 
length on the slide. It is an idyllic picture, and we 



December. 297 



are sorry to leave it ; but on the open Fell, when we 
are once more away from all human neighbourhood, 
we get the grandest spectacle of all our journey. The 
sun is setting now, and the crimson light is streaming 
into Borrowdale, and, as it seems, from many points 
of the sky at the same time. On some hills the 
snow is flushed with rose ; on others it is a cold and 
spectral blue ; while in the east the colour is that of 
brilliant silver, white but glistening ; and below, in 
the deep valleys where the snow is not lying, and 
where the dark has already fallen, the tone is brown, 
purple, even black. No words can convey the large 
and awful beauty of such a scene. The feeling only 
can be given ; and even that so inadequately in any 
language of mine that I fall back instinctively on 
those memorable lines in the First Book of ' The 
Excursion,' which certainly express, better than any 
other words have yet been able to do, the relation 
whi ch nature bears to the soul in the hour of supreme 

contact : — 

Sound needed none, 
Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank 
The spectacle : . . . . 
Thought was not : in enjoyment it expired. 
No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; 
Rapt into still communion that transcends 
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, 
His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power 
That made him ; it was blessedness and love ! 



298 Country Pleasures. 



L.—AN OLD-FASHIONED WINTER. 

December 24. 

In the middle of November I recorded a storm of 
snow — the first heavy fall of the present winter. 
After that we had fog and intermittent frost — sharp 
frost at night and thaw in the day, often accompanied 
by rain. To those, however, who were carefully 
watching the weather-signs it was clear that Winter 
in his most savage mood was gradually approaching 
and drawing his lines so closely around us that we 
should soon find ourselves in a state of siege. 

On the first day of December there was no frost, 
and the sun rose brightly in a crimson sky ; but, 
almost immediately, a violent wind sprang up in the 
north-west and dashed a whole hemisphere of clouds 
into his face. A few gleams of light followed, but 
the sun was beaten ; and since then we have had frost 
every day. Gradually the pond began to be covered 
with ice ; but the geese were still able with wing and 
foot to break it in a morning. On the night of the 
third, when there was clear moonlight, I watched the 
ducks paddling about their wooden house while the 
ice could be seen forming slowly round them. The 
next morning two large Muscovy ducks were able to 
walk across ; but the ice bent under their heavy tread, 



December. 299 



and made a sound which was singularly like the 
whistling of a bird. On the sixth, one of my boys, 
over-anxious to begin skating, ventured a little way 
from the edge, but it was not safe, and he was 
peremptorily withdrawn. It was not until the tenth 
that our pond, which is large, had got beyond sus- 
picion. The thermometer was then marking, during 
the night, about fifteen degrees of frost ; and the 
long-coveted opportunity had come at last. Straps 
were buckled on, and the characteristic sport of winter 
began in good earnest : — 

All shod with steel, 
We hissed along the polished ice in games 
Confederate, imitative of the chase 
And woodland pleasures, — the resounding horn, 
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. 

Or as the earlier poet puts it, swept — 

On sounding skates, a thousand different ways, 
In circling poise, swift as the winds, along. 

This skating, night after night, was a pleasant 
thing even for those elders who were but spectators, 
or who at best could only follow the flying couples in 
a laggard and halting fashion. At the edge of the 
pond is the Winter-house, where we had a great fire, 
and into which we could retreat for warmth or re- 
freshment. Besides this we had a fire in a cresset on 
the bank, and candles placed at intervals, so that, as 



300 Country Pleasures, 

the skaters swirled about, cutting their mysterious 
figures — their ' double eights,' and ' threes,' and * sixes,' 
the ' outside edge,' and the ' Dutch roll,' — all sorts of 
grotesque shadows were projected across the ice. 
Then, later on, the moon would rise, putting out the 
twinkling candles and making a dull line of light 
along the pond. 

A still lower degree of temperature was reached 
in the early morning of the fourteenth, when there 
were twenty-two degrees of frost. On that day there 
was also a dense white mist, which increased the cold, 
and made a walk in the open air very like a bath in 
freezing water. The icicles on the windows were two 
feet long, and the trees were so thickly coated with 
rime that adjacent buildings were, I observed, just as 
much hidden as they are by the leaves in early sum- 
mer. This was, naturally enough, the prelude to a 
heavy fall of snow which began on the fifteenth. The 
immediate effect was a scene of unique beauty in the 
wood. All the tree-trunks were covered with a thin 
veil of frozen mist, which made them grey in colour, 
and which in a curious manner revealed — or one might 
say intensified — all the texture and tracery of the 
bark, bringing out each accidental contortion of 
growth as well as the symmetrical rings, for instance, 
which surround the place where the branch . starts 



December. 301 



from the bole. And then, on the top of this, and 
resting on every irregularity or projection, came the 
new-fallen snow, a perfect white, harmonising won- 
derfully with the grey. This effect, which was quite 
distinct from that of ordinary rime, and which I have 
never seen either painted or described, was most 
conspicuous on the smooth and fluted limbs of the 
beeches. 

Since the fifteenth the snow has continued falling 
from time to time, and in the country has not melted 
at all. It is now from seven to twelve inches deep in 
the garden ; and, having been frozen again and again, 
it crunches under foot with a shrill treble sound. The 
boys have been in great force ; to them the sight of 
snow is an intoxicant, and they are always dashing 
out and into it for reasons known only to themselves. 
Of course we have had great snow-balls and snow- 
men and snow-forts. 

To see the snow at its best, however, one must 
leave the garden and travel as, far as The Moss ; and 
the best time to see it is in the early afternoon. It is 
not without difficulty that we make our way along 
the narrow lanes, for in some places they are almost 
blocked with drift. Here on a farm-yard pond, from 
which the snow has been swept, are some score of 
rustics skating. Although their movements are not 



302 Country Pleasures. 

what would be called graceful, their style shows a 
dash and a vigour which Would be wanting in a more 
polished performance. How strange and wild the 
vast waste of snow looks as we move along always in 
a bounding circle of mist ! There is certainly some- 
thing fascinating even in its monotony, and in its 
apparent endlessness, as the fog falls back and one 
reach after another comes into sight. The marl-pits 
are only distinguishable now by the few tufts of 
rushes which show here and there above the surface 
of the snow-covered ice. Though the sky is enve- 
loped in thick cloud, we know that the sun is setting. 
In the north-east the scattered farms and the clumps 
of trees are grey, with a tinge of blue ; but in the 
south-west they are grey with a tinge of yellow, and 
that is all that we shall see of the sunset. At our 
feet, and immediately around us, everything is intensely 
black and intensely white ; so much so that we are 
startled, and turn with relief to the softer distance. 
It will soon be dark now, and the boys propose that 
we should scramble home by the Clough. Here the 
snow is twelve inches deep on the level ; in the 
hollows it is much deeper ; and, as we cannot always 
see where the hollows are, we are often more than 
knee-deep. It is fine exercise, however, and a 
pleasant pastime, even though, once or twice, we 



December. 303 



come down ingloriously at full length, and get the 
cold and powdery snow up our sleeve or behind the 
shirt-collar. Coming at last across the fields near 
home, we find that the lights already glimmering in 
the windows are not unneedful as a guide to lead us 
in the right direction. 

In July I was writing of 'Tropical Summer'; 
surely this may be called an Arctic Winter. We 
were then creeping under the trees for shade, with a 
thermometer marking 113 degrees at half-past five in 
the evening ; now we are freezing indoors ; milk is 
congealed into a hard mass ; water served at table has 
lumps of ice in it ; and eggs when stripped of their 
shells are found to be so frozen that they can be 
rolled about like stones. The lowest temperature so 
far was reached last night, when the thermometer fell 
to 5 above zero, that being 27 degrees of frost. The 
day has also been almost entirely dark — dark even at 
noon — and the sensation of cold was much intensified 
by fog. We do not remember to have ever seen a 
morning which realised for us so vividly that dreary 
and death- like gloom which we associate with those 
regions where the reign of Winter is never broken. 
As we walked along the dark and frozen alleys of the 
garden we found ourselves, under the influence of 
certain old associations, crooning over that fine song 



304 Country Pleasures, 

of poor Tannahill's — ' The Braes of GlenifTer.' The 
minstrels of Scotland, even if we include Burns, have 
rarely done anything better : — 

Keen blaws the wind o'er the braes o' GlenifTer, 

The auld castle's turrets are covered \vi' snaw ; 
How changed frae the time when I met wi' my lover, 

Amang the broom bushes by Stanley green shaw : 
The wild flowers o' simmer were spread a' sae bonnie, 

The mavis sung sweet frae the green birken tree ; 
But far to the camp they ha'e marched my dear Johnnie, 

And now it is winter wi' nature and me. 

Then ilk thing around us was blythesome and cheerie, 

Then ilk thing around us was bonnie and braw ; 
Now naething is heard but the wind whistling dreary, 

And naething is seen but the wide-spreading snaw. 
The trees are a' bare, and the birds mute and dowie ; 

They shake the cauld drift frae their wings as they flee, 
And chirp out their plaints, seeming wae for my Johnnie ; 

'Tis winter wi' them and 'tis winter wi' me. 

Yon cauld sleety cloud skiffs alang the bleak mountain, 

And shakes the dark firs on the steep rocky brae, 
While down the deep glen bawls the snaw-flooded fountain 

That murmur'd sae sweet to my laddie and me. 
'Tis no its loud roar on the wint'ry wind swellin', 

'Tis no the cauld blast brings the tear i' my e'e 
For, oh, gin I saw but my bonnie Scots callan, 

The dark days o' winter were simmer to me ! 

And yet, even in these dark days, there is beauty 
to be found if only we look for it. When I shook 
the snow off our yellow-jasmine I found the buds 
growing underneath ; and my friend the Painter has 



December. 305 



just brought in, for me to look at, two sketches made 
in a garden close by, and during this inclement 
weather. One is a brown spray of willow on which 
are the swelling purple buds which mean foliage next 
spring ; the other is a delicate sprig from a rose-tree, 
and shows, still hanging, two bright scarlet hips. 
The first is a prophecy, the second is a reminiscence ; 
and both are lovely bits of colour discovered amid 
the steril'ty of winter. 

The poor birds are having an evil time of it ; but 
we are doing all we can to help them. We have 
established certain feeding-places by the windows of 
the house, and in remote parts of the garden, to 
which they come regularly in great numbers. Around 
one of these crumb-pots there are hundreds of little 
footmarks in the snow : they are chiefly those of 
sparrows and robins ; but the larger birds come also. 
Rooks and larks and blackbirds have been frequently 
seen eating with the smaller creatures. True to his 
character, the robin has ventured indoors : we have 
found him even in a bedroom. 

There have been other mouths, however, to fill 
besides those of the birds. Here, in Moston, as else- 
where, we have found many cold hearths and empty 
cupboards. The children have claimed our first atten- 
tion, and their wants have been ministered to by the 

X 



306 Country Pleasures. 

same little hands which have helped me to feed the 
starving birds. The other day, as two small boys, 
hungry and frozen, were being thawed and fed before 
the kitchen fire, they were overheard saying to each 
other as they looked wistfully at the great blaze 
which was just then roaring up the chimney — ' If we 
had only a fire like that ! ' 

' And what sort of fire, then, is it that you have ? ' 

4 Oh, we have none at all. We did scrape some 

coals together and made one this morning, but it 

went out at ten o'clock, and mother had no more 

coal and no more money.' 

And all this was but the literal truth, and only a 
slight indication of much that was behind it, and of 
what was going on during this fearful weather in scores 
of poor cottage-homes. Many, however, were ready 
to help ; and thoughtful men have thankfully acknow- 
ledged that one of the compensations of the time has 
consisted in the fact that an old-fashioned winter has 
brought forth a plentiful manifestation of old-fashioned 
charity. 

LI.— CHRISTMAS EVE. 

Moston, December 30. 

ALTHOUGH Christmas Eve was probably the darkest 
and coldest day that had been known for twenty 



December. 307 



years, we were not to be debarred from our usual 
festivity indoors. Indeed, the frost and gloom 
without gave, as one might expect, an added zest to 
cheeriness within. Of all the nights in the year this, 
which ushers in the great Festival of the Nativity, is 
the dearest to us, and the fullest of sweet remem- 
brances. Not only do the associations of centuries 
cluster around it, but every year of one's own life, 
from childhood onward, has added to it some new 
grace of memory. In summing up its attractions we 
perceive that religion, literature, romance, the domestic 
life, and the charm of the country, all contribute their 
share. 

Toiling homeward along the frozen lane I see that, 
though the mist still clings to the earth, the upper 
sky is becoming visible — black, however, not blue, 
and showing faintly a few isolated stars. The trees 
are white, the fields are white, the snow is deep ; and, 
when the opened door which had sent forth a broad 
band of ruddy light closes behind us, we admit that 
in external circumstance at least our Christmas Eve 
is all that could be desired. 

The first thing to be thought of in a country-house 
is the seasonable decoration. And the prime requi- 
site is that it must be plentiful : to make it sparse is to 
do worse than nothing. We want boughs, and great 



308 Country Pleasures. 

ones too, not scattered sprigs and leaves. It is 
scarcely possible to pile on too much, and in the hall, 
at any rate, one should hardly be able to see one's 
way for greenery. We get most of our material in 
our own garden, making it an opportunity for pruning 
and trimming the evergreens. The mistletoe and 
laurel we are obliged to buy. As it is our fancy not 
to begin this work until after nightfall on Christmas- 
Eve itself, there is plenty to be done. The work, 
however, is part of the evening's enjoyment, and 
there are many ready to help. It is a picture very 
pleasant to me when I see the huge heap of ever- 
greens in the middle of the floor and the fire-light 
playing among the glossy leaves. Then the ladders 
are brought in, and the young folks soon cover the 
walls with wreaths and festoons of green, the boys 
handing up the branches to the girls, who know best 
how to dispose them most gracefully. 

As I sit by and watch I recall to myself, or 
repeat for the recreation of the decorators, some of 
the many passages in our old writers in which this 
English custom is alluded to : — 

Lo ! now is come our joyful'st Feast ! 

Let every Man be jolly ; 
Each Roome with Yvie leaves is drest, 

And every Post with Holly. 



December, 309 



That comes from a carol by George Wither. 
This is from a Christmas Song published in 1695 : — 

With holly and ivy 

So green and so gay, 
We deck up our houses 

As fresh as the day, 
With bays and rosemary 

And laurel compleat, 
And every one now 

Is a king in conceit. 

In Herrick's Christmas ' Caroll sung to the King 
in the presence at Whitehall,' the ' Musical Part ' of 
which was composed by that Mr. Henry Lawes who 
was Milton's friend, we have the following : — 

The darling of the world is come, 
And fit it is we finde a room 
To welcome Him. The nobler part 
Of all the house here is the heart, 

Which we will give him, and bequeath 
This hollie and this ivie wreath, 
To do him honour, who's our King, 
And Lord of all this revelling. 

Old Thomas Tusser is in a different vein. As usual, 
he is homely and eminently practical : — 

Get Iuye and hull, woman deck up thyne house : 
And take this same brawne, for to seeth and to souse. 
Prouide us good chere, for thou know'st the old guise : 
Oide customes, that good be, let no man dispise. 



310 Cou7itry Plea stir es. 

At Christmas be mery, and thanke God of all ; 

And feast thy pore neighbours, the great with the small. 

Yea, al the yere long, haue an eie to the poore : 

And God shall sende luck, to kepe open thy doore. 

When the decoration is finished the logs are put 
upon the fire, and another little ceremony begins. 
The Christmas tree is brought in and hung with 
glittering trifles ; and then a certain ancient, having 
donned a suitable robe, and wearing for the nonce a 
flowing beard, comes with a loud knocking to the 
door. The lights are turned down, and he is led in. 
His hat and shoon are of the colour of his beard. He 
is fondly supposed to have made a long journey 
through the snow ; and when he takes his seat in an 
accustomed chair he lays his hands on the heads of 
the little ones and gives them the blessing of Father 
Christmas. When this ' disguisyng and mummyng,' 
which an old author says ' is used in Christemas tyme 
in the Northe partes ' is over, the more hilarious 
spirits betake them to their beds, and we settle down 
to a condition of quiet and peaceful enjoyment, no 
small part of which consists in turning over the pages 
of sundry well-worn volumes which on this night are 
always taken from their shelves and laid upon the 
table. They are old, old friends. We know them 
almost by heart, and our fingers turn involuntarily to 
the Christmas passages which we like best. We open 



December. 3 1 1 



first the ' Lesser Passion of Albert Diirer ' that we may 
see once more his quaint picture of the Nativity, and 
then we turn to 'La Mort D'Arthur' and read : — 

* Then Merlin went to the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, and counselled him to send for all the lords of 
the realm, and all the gentlemen of arms, that they 
should come to London before Christmas, upon pain 
of cursing, and for this cause, that as Our Lord was 
bom on that night, that he would of his great mercy 
show some miracle, as he was come to be King of all 
mankind, who should be rightwise King of this realm. 
So the Archbishop, by the advice of Merlin, sent for 
all the lords and gentlemen of arms that they should 
come by Christmas Eve to London. And many 
of them made them clean of their lives that their 
prayer might be the more acceptable to God.' 

Our Shakspere opens at ' Hamlet,' and gives us by 

the mouth of Marcellus the well-known and charming 

speech : — 

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes 
Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, 
The bird of dawning singeth all night long : 
And then, they say, no spirit dares stir abroad : 
The nights are wholesome : then no planets strike, 
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm. 
So hallow'd and so gracious is the time. 

With Horatio we answer : — 

So have I heard, and do in part believe it. 



Country Pleasures, 



From Milton's ' Ode ' we choose to read the two follow- 
ing stanzas : — 

But peaceful was the night, 
Wherein the Prince of Light 
His reign of peace upon the earth began. 
The winds with wonder whist, 
Smoothly the waters kissed, 
Whispering new joys to the mild Ocean, 
Who now hath quite forgot to rave, 
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave. 

The shepherds on the lawn, 
Or ere the point of dawn, 
Sat simply chatting in a rustic row ; 
Full little thought they then, 
That the mighty Pan 
Was kindly come to live with them below : 
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, 
Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. 

Then I turn to good George Herbert and run 
over that Christmas Carol which begins — 

The shepherds sing ; and shall I silent be ? 
My God, no hymme for thee ? 

and to that other which was sung by a kindred spirit 
— Henry Vaughan : — 

Awake, glad heart ! get up and sing ! 
It is the Birth-day of thy King 
Awake ! awake ! 

After these I pass to two modern books, ' Wash- 
ington Irving ' and ' In Memoriam.' From the first 



December. 313 



I cull the following, which stands at the head of the 
ever-delightful series of essays on the subject of 
Christmas : — 

1 But is old, old, good old Christmas gone ? No- 
thing but the hair of his good, grey, old head and 
beard left ? Well, I will have that, seeing I cannot 
have more of him.' 

And from the second these three stanzas which suit 
the circumstances of the present night, and which are 
among the sweetest in the language : — 

The time draws near the birth of Christ : 
The moon is hid ; the night is still ; 
The Christmas bells from hill to hill 

Answer each other in the mist. 

Four voices of four hamlets round, 

From far and near, on mead and moor, 
Swell out and fail, as if a door 

Were shut between me and the sound : 

Each voice four changes in the wind, 
That now dilate, and now decrease, 
Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace, 

Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. 

By this time the hour of midnight strikes. It is 
Christmas morning, and after we have sung together 
John Byrom's time-honoured hymn, to its own old 
tune, I find myself alone — alone with the memory of 
the dead. It is the evil spirit which dares not stir 
abroad to-night ; the good surely may ; and when I 



3 1 4 Country Pleasures. 

draw back the curtain from the window they seem to 
pass before me in a long line across the snow. There, 
I see, are some of the sweetest faces I have ever 
known— sweet still, and solemn, but not sad. When 
I go back to the fire, now sinking into dimness, I 
revert once more to the pages of the Silurist, and his 
words are on my lips : — 

They are all gone into the world of light ! 

And I alone sit ling'ring here ! 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 

And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

Some hours later the carol-singers were under the 
window. Their voices rang out clearly in the keen 
morning air ; and, through a little aperture which I 
made in the frost-tracery, I could just make out their 
quaint faces glimmering large and red in the light of 
an old lantern which one of the party held aloft in 
his hand. 



LIL— CONCLUSION: THE OLD YEAR ENDED, 
AND THE NEW YEAR BEGUN 

January 8, 1S79. 

The morning of Christmas Day was the brightest 
we had seen since the beginning of the frost. The 
memorable fog of the previous day had entirely dis- 
appeared, and although the cold was still severe — in 



January. 3 1 5 



the night it had been more intense than ever, the 
thermometer marking as low as four degrees above 
zero — yet the sky was so blue, and the thin air so full 
of clear sunlight, that as we passed through the gar- 
den and down the lane on our way to that Morning 
Service which is the most joyous of all the year, my 
delight found a half-articulate expression in the vague 
burden of an old carol which I used to hear sung in 
the streets when I was a boy — 

All the bells in heaven shall ring, 

In heaven shall ring, in heaven shall ring ; 

All the bells in heaven shall ring, 

On Christmas-day in the morning. 

After church was over, there was time enough, be- 
fore dinner, to make an accustomed round of visits 
among our neighbours — rich and poor alike — and to 
wish them, as we had done for who knows how many 
years before, Merry Christmas and a Good New Year. 
These old customs may become mere Use and 

Wont- 
Old sisters of a day gone by, 
Gray nurses, loving nothing new ; 

but why should they ? They are the consecrated 
symbols of a healthy and an honest feeling, and each 
may determine for himself whether they shall sink 
into hollow forms or remain still the picturesque ex- 
pressions of a genuine emotion. 



3 1 6 Country Pleasures. 

A Christmas Day without its long and somewhat 
ceremonious dinner would be a poor thing indeed ; 
but we need not linger over it here. I will only- 
pause to note that for me it remains in the memory 
chiefly as part of that exquisite winter-picture which, 
at the time, was seen through the windows ; and 
that for table-decoration we managed to get from the 
greenhouse, notwithstanding the cold, a bright little 
geranium, a white camellia, and a large pot of fresh 
green ferns. If the children were asked their opinion 
they would probably say that the most memorable 
thing was the huge pudding ; and that for them the 
moment of triumph was when, the curtains having 
been drawn close so as to shut out what little light 
remained, the said pudding was brought in, shoulder- 
high, wreathed with blue flames, and crowned with a 
sprig of holly — a pudding in apotheosis. 

When dinner had been fully discussed, and all 
observances duly disposed of, we adjourned to the 
garden and had a long bout of skating. The pond 
had been entirely covered with snow ; but by the use 
of spade and brush a meandering path had been cut, 
along which the skaters could pass. Standing at the 
edge, the black ice looked like a narrow river running 
between white banks. After dark, candles were 
lighted and stuck in the snow. As they burnt down 



January. 3 1 7 



they melted a little hollow for themselves, at the 
bottom of which the light could still be seen, making 
a green glimmer very like that of a glow-worm. Late 
at night a wind rose in the east and brought with it a 
drift of fine snow, which swept over everything and 
into everything, filling the eyes and ears, and clinging 
to the beard in frozen clots. 

This wind proved to be the beginning of a thaw ; 
and on the next day the water dropping from the 
trees, and the snow sometimes falling in lumps, made 
a sound like the pattering of many feet. The twenty- 
ninth was clear and warm ; but in the afternoon, 
while it was yet daylight, there was a curious inter- 
polation of frost, sudden and short, for it lasted only 
about an hour. The period of its continuance was 
marked by the brilliancy of the new moon. A friend 
tells me that during this time his bees were killed by 
scores. The sun tempted them out, and then the quick 
frost caught them before they could get back to the 
hives. On the thirtieth the grass on the lawn, which 
the snow had hidden for weeks, became visible once 
more ; and on the last day of the year, the thermo- 
meter not having gone below 42 degrees even in the 
night, and a heavy wind helping the sun, the snow 
entirely disappeared, except in those hollows and 
corners which are always in shadow. 



3 T 8 Country Pleasures. 

The eve of the New Year, like that of Christmas, 
has with us its own observances. For this night the 
largest log is kept. It is also lighted with last year's 
brand and with a piece of mistletoe saved from last 
year's bough. Herrick includes this amongst his 
Ceremonies for Christmas : — 

Come, bring with a noise, 

My merrie, merrie boyes, 
The Christmas log to the firing ; 

While my good dame, she 

Bids ye all be free, 
And drink to your hearts' desirin 

With the last yeere's brand 

Light the new block, and 
For good successe in his spending, 

On your psaltries play, 

That sweet luck may 
Come while the log is a teending. 

When the log is well burning, the Wassail is com- 
pounded with much ingenious care, and brought in 
with a song. The company, seated in a circle round 
the fire, touch their glasses, and say — ' Hael, hael, 
wassail.' Then one of their number rises, and, half 
reading, half chanting, runs over, as he has done 
every year since ' In Memoriam ' was published, that 
noble valediction which expresses so compendiously, 
and yet with such completeness, the drift of modern 
thought. 



January. 319 



Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 
The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
The year is dying in the night ; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring in the valiant man and free — 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land ; 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

After this, as it wants but a few minutes to twelve, 
the scene changes to the open air ; and the group 
gathers closely together on a little rising ground under 
a line of beeches, and awaits in silence the stroke of 
the hour. The night is warm and the wind west. 
The half-moon is setting and the clouds drift against 
her as she sinks. The tree-tops are wildly tossed 
about. But for this, there would be neither sound nor 
motion. How long the last minute seems ! At length 
the silence is broken by the firing of a gun, and then 
comes the big bell far away in the city, and the joyous 
peal ringing at once from many steeples. We have 
entered on another year ; and as many old friends join 
their hands once more in a fervent grasp, each knows 
that the others are thinking — What will it bring ? 
Life or death ; loss or gain ? 

The first day of the New Year brought back the 
frost, which has continued until now. The morning 
was clear ; the pond had a thin coating of ice ; and 



3 2 o Country Pleasures. 



the lanes were hardening again as we started for a 
long walk across The Moss to a certain village where, 
according to established custom on this day, we were 
to dine at an old country inn. It is pleasant walking 
among the farms and cottages, surrounded as they 
all seem to be by laughing children and cackling 
poultry. The people are mostly out of doors and in 
holiday guise. Though the morning is yet early a few 
are already in a state of mellow civility, the result of 
much drinking of healths. Here is an old acquaintance 
— John the Mower. Although past threescore, few 
men in all the country-side could handle a scythe 
better than he can, even now. His face is of that 
kind which, notwithstanding grey hairs, will remain 
child-like to the end — small in feature, fresh in colour, 
and open in expression. As he stands at the door 
his head is bare, and his clean white shirt is rolled 
back from his breast as if the day had been one of 
summer. His eyes twinkle as he comes up to me, 
and the smile on his face indicates an inward ques- 
tioning as to his condition ; but he puts out his rough 
hand at a venture, and says in his own quaint way 
— 'Aye well ; aye, to be sure — if we could be ever as 
we are now — full of good meat and drink — meat and 
drink.' 

While dinner is preparing at the inn we spend an 



yanuary. 321 



hour in and about the Village Church. It is a very 
ancient structure standing on a considerable eminence. 
From it a wide view may be got over the moor- 
land country which lies north and east. The date of 
its erection is unknown ; but an arch between the nave 
and the tower is evidently Norman. There are many 
curious brasses on the floor of the chancel, and an oak 
screen of the time of Henry VIII.; but perhaps the 
most interesting thing is a coloured window which is 
said to represent the bowmen who went from the 
village to the Battle of Flodden Field, under the 
command of a certain Sir Richard Assheton, grand- 
son of Sir Rafe, who was Knight Marshal of England 
in the reign of Edward IV. Of this band there are 
seventeen, all kneeling, with their chaplain in front, 
and across each man's shoulders are slung his bow 
and the sheaf of arrows. The tower of the church is 
both singular and picturesque. It is built of stone 
like the church ; but it is surmounted by a four- 
gabled structure of wood, in which are hung the bells. 
Into this chamber we climbed, making our way up 
the dark and worn stone stairs. Through the chinks 
in the timber we could discern the village at the foot 
of the hill, and the hostelry where we were to dine — 
as quaint a place as may anywhere be seen, with its 
grey and leaning gables, its black-and-white timbered 

Y 



322 Country Pleasures. 

front, and its huge buttresses projecting on to the 
pavement. In the Old Boar's Head there was a large 
consumption of roast-beef and mince-pie by old and 
young alike ; and in the evening a sharp walk home, 
taking the Clough in our way. 

The next day the frost became severe again ; and 
on the morning of the third we found that there had 
been a fresh fall of snow. When I went to feed the 
birds I saw by their foot-marks that, impatient for 
my coming, they had already been to the crumb-pot 
looking for breakfast. As the snow was quite new 
I could make out the different kinds of birds by the 
size and the depth of the imprint. The robin's foot 
seems the lightest of all. The trees were once more 
arrayed in their white dress — the hollies covered on 
the top, but black underneath ; the rhododendrons 
bent down with a shapeless load : the deciduous trees 
powdered all over, and the firs most beautiful of all. 
On the fourth, we had the finest sunset of all the 
winter. At four o'clock the frozen trees were trans- 
formed to a brilliant pink, and rose-coloured clouds 
were drifting across the sky. 

Yesterday the wind changed to the east ; but the 
frost continues. To-night the moon is at full, the 
sky clear, the cold intense, the shadows black and 
sharp in the snow, and the wind so violent that it 



JaniLd7'y. 323 



makes a great roaring in the trees. The skating is at 
its best again, for the wind keeps the ice smooth and 
bright. One of my boys has just been in to say that 
he has skated three miles without stopping by making 
the circuit of the pond some fifty times ; and another 
tells me that by holding a kind of sail in his hands 
he has been driven along the ice as a boat would be 
on the water. Earlier in the evening I had myself a 
splendid run in the sledge, two good skaters pulling 
in front and another pushing behind. Nothing more 
exhilarating can be conceived than this sledge-riding. 
To paraphrase Wordsworth — we give our bodies to 
the wind ; the shadowy banks on either side spin 
round and sweep past us ; and even when we have 
stopped, they still wheel on as if — 

The earth had rolled 
With visible motion her diurnal round ! 

All this, however, is the bright side of winter. It 
is too good to last, and we must not expect to escape 
the dreary and dolorous days which have surely yet 
to come. But, when these are over, we know what 
awaits us. In my first Notes, which were written on 
the seventeenth of January in last year, I drew atten- 
tion to the bright colour of the new leaves on the 
young foxglove plants. This year, on the sloping bed 



324 Country Pleasttres. 

beneath the leafless thorns, I have already seen the 
same thing ; and so the round of the changeful seasons 
and my simple record of them are both completed 
together ; and I bid the patient reader farewell with 
my best New Year's greeting and this last word for 
his comfort : — 

If Winter comes can Spring be far behind ? 



AN INDEX OF QUOTATIONS, 



PAGE 

2. William Wordsworth, 'To my Sister/ Works, vol. v. p. 17. 

5. Lord Bacon, Essay, 'Of Gardens.' 

6. John Ruskin, Oxford Lectures. 

7. Percy Bysshe Shelley, ' Summer and Winter.' 

12. Dante, The Inferno, Canto ix. Trans. J. W. Thomas. 

T 'y 

*■'*• j> >» >> j> 

12. S. T. Coleridge, ' The Ancient Mariner,' Part i. 

12. Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King, 'Guinevere.' 

12. ,, ,, ' The Passing of Arthur. 

14. William Cowper, The Task. Book v. L. 11. 

17. Alfred Tennyson, Poems, ' St. Agnes.' 

18. Sir Philip Sidney, ' Astrophel and Stella,' xxxi. 

18. William Wordsworth, ' Intimations of Immortality,' Works, vol. v. 

P- 337- 
18. Percy Bysshe Shelley, 'To a Skylark.' 

20. Alfred Tennyson, Poems, 'Ginone.' 

21. Sebastian Evans, Poems, 1865, ' Crocus-Gathering,' p. 196. 
21. John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book iv. L. 700. . 

30. Sir Walter Scott, 'The Bridal of Triermain,' Canto i. Sts. xii. 

and xiii. 

31. Alfred Tennyson, Idylls of the King, 'Vivien.' 

34. Robert Herrick, ' Ceremony upon Candlemas Eve.' 

35. Old Ballad : Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, ' Sir Patrick 

Spence.' 
35. S. T. Coleridge, 'Dejection: An Ode.' 

38. William Wordsworth, ' I wandered lonely,' Works, vol. ii. p. 93. 

39. Dorothy Wordsworth, Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. i. p. 182. 



326 An Index of Quotations. 



PAGE 

39. William Wordsworth, Memoirs, vol. I. p. 188. 

40. Michael Drayton, ' The Ninth Eclogue.' 

41. Robert Herrick, « To Daffadils.' 

41. William Shakspere, 7 he Winter's Tale, Act iv. Sc. iii. 
41. ,, ,, Act iv. Sc. iv. 

43. James Thomson, The Seasons, 'Spring.' 

44. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, lxxxii. 
46. ,, The Princess. 

49. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, ' The Milleres Tale.' 

50. Charles Lamb, Correspondence, p. 30. 

51. Robert Herrick, 'To Dianeme : A Ceremonie in Glocester. 

53. Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia, ' All Fools' Day.' 

54. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. ii. 'To the Small Celandine.' 
54. ,, Alemoirs, vol. i. p. 189. 

56. Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes, ' A Description of the Pro- 
perties of Windes.' 

61. Geoffrey Chaucer, 'The Prologe of Nine Goode Wymmen.' 

62. William Shakspere, Lucrece, L. 393. 

62. ,, Love's Labour's Lost, Act v. Sc. ii. 

63. John Milton, 'L'Allegro,' L. 75. 
63. ,, 'Comus/'L. 120. 

63. Robert Herrick, ' To Daisies, not to shut so soone.' 

64. Robert Burns, ' To a Mountain Daisy.' 
64. P. B. Shelley, 'The Question.' 

64. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. ii. ' To the Daisy, 1805.' 

68. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, Chap. xxx. 

69. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. i. ' Foresight.' 

70. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, lxxxii. 

75. William Shakspere, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act i. Sc. i. 

75. Robert Herrick, ' Corinna's going a Maying.' 

76. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. v. ' Intimations of Immor- 

tality.' 

80. William Wordsworth, Works, vol i. ' The Sparrow's Nest. ' 

81. J. R. Lowell, 'To the Dandelion.' 

84. John Milton, ' Song on May Morning.' 

84. ,, 'Lycidas.' 

84. William Morris, The Earthly Paradise ; 'May.' 



An Index of Quotations. 327 



PAGE 

86. Frederick Tennyson, Days and Hours, ' Mayday.' 

87. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, lxxxii. 

89. Christopher Marlowe, 'The Passionate Shepherd.' 

89. Robert Southey, ' The Holly Tree.' 

92. Robert Stephen Hawker, ' A Legend of the Hive. ' 

95. Henry Vaughan, Sacred Poe??is, * Departed Friends. ' 

98. Alfred Tennyson, Poems, ' The Talking Oak.' 

102. Henry Vaughan, Sacred Poems, ' The Bird. ' 

104. Alfred Tennyson, Poems, ' The Blackbird. ' 

107. Robert Herrick, ' Ceremonies for Candlemasse Eve.' 

109. P. B. Shelley, « To a Skylark.' 

no. Alfred Tennyson, Maud, etc. ' To the Rev. F. D. Maurice.' 

1 10. Thomas Gray, ' Elegy written in a Country Churchyard. ' 

115. George Herbert, The Temple, 'Sunday.' 

116. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. ii. 'To the Cuckoo.' 
116. John Logan, Poems, ' Ode to the Cuckoo.' 

119. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. i. 'The Longest Day.' 

120. Barnaby Googe, ' The Popish Kingdome. ' 

122. William Cowper, The Task, 'The Sofa,' L. 307. 

125. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, lxxxviii. 

126. Robert Burns, ' To a Mouse.' 

129. Goethe, Faust, 'Prologue,' Shelley's Trans. 

1 32. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, liv. 

134. Isaac Watts, ' There is a land of pure delight. 

135. Matthew Arnold, ' Thyrsi s : A Monody.' 

136. John Clare, TJie Shepherd 's Calendar, 'July.' 

137. Alfred Tennyson, The Princess, iv. 

140. H. W. Longfellow, 'Rain in Summer.' 

141. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, lxxxviii. 
145. Miss Manning, The Household of Sir Thomas More, pp. 33-35. 

148. Alfred Tennyson, Maud, etc. ' To the Rev. F. D. Maurice.' 

149. Justice Coleridge, Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. ii. p. 301. 
155. William Wordsworth, Works, ' My heart leaps up,' vol. i. 
155. Matthew Arnold, ' Cadmus and Harmonia.' 
158. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. v. ' On the Frith of Clyde. 5 
161. Sir Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, vol. iii 

' Cadyow Castle.' 



An Index of Quotations. 



PAGE 

165. A. C. Swinburne. Poems and Ballads, Second Series, ' Cyril 

Tourneur.' 
167. John Logan, ' The Braes of Yarrow.' 
167. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. iii. ' Sonnets dedicated to 

Liberty,' xii. 
169. Alfred Tennyson, Maud, etc. xxiii. 4. 

171. ^Eschylus, Prometheus, 89. 

172. John Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 165. 
172. Lord Byron, The Giaour. 

172. John Keble, The Christian Year, ' Second Sunflay after Trinity.* 

177. Bishop Percy, Reliques, 'The Battle of Otterbourne.' 

181. George Eliot, ' A College Breakfast Party.' 

182. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. v. p. 150. 
185. Sir Walter Scott, The Lord of the Lsles, iv. 13. 

187. John Keats, 'To Ailsa Rock.' ^ 

191. Robert Burns, 'To Mary in Heaven.' 

191. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. ii. ' The Pass of Kirkstone.' 

192. Sir Walter Scott, The Lord of the Lsles, v. I. 

197. William Morris, The Earthly Paradise, 'September.' 

198. Matthew Arnold, 'Switzerland.' 

199. Homer, Lliad, Book viii. Tennyson's Trans. Enoch Arden, etc. 

P- 177. 

201. P. B. Shelley, 'Ode to the West Wind.' 

202. • ,, ,, 
203. 

204. William Shakspere, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act iii. Sc. i. 

L. 128. 
211. Felicia Hemans, Works, vol. iv. ' Eryri Wen.' 

216. Alfred Tennyson, The Princess, vi. 

217. William Shakspere, Sonnets, xxxiii. 

219. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. v. ' Yarrow Revisited 

221. Matthew Arnold, 'Thyrsis.' 

223. John Clare, The Shepherd's Calendar, ' October.' 

227. William Wordsworth, ' Preface to The Excursion.' 

227. William Cowper, The Task, ' The Winter Walk at Noon,' L. 173. 

229. John Aikin, 'The Lime first fading.' 

230. John Keats, 'To Autumn.' 



A n Index of Quotations. 329 



PAGE 

232. Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, ii. v. xxix. 
234. Robert Bloomfield, The Farmer's Boy, ' Winter.' 

241. Alfred Tennyson, ' The Gardener's Daughter.' 

242. William Allingham, ' Robin Redbreast. ' 

243. William Shakspere, Hamlet, Act iv. Sc. vii. 167 

247. Robert Burns, ' Halloween. ' 

248. John Keble, ' All Saints' Day.' 

249. Kenelm Henry Digby, The Broad Stone of Honour, 'Morns.' 

250. Michael Drayton, Polyolbion, ' The seven-and-twentieth Song.' 

251. Alexander Smith, A Life Draina, Sc. ii. 

252. Sir Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, 'The Young 

Tamlane.' 
254. William Shakspere, Sonnets, lxxiii. 

259. William Wordsworth, Works, vol. ii. 'Lines at Tintern.' 
261. Samuel Bamford, Passages in the Life of a Radical, vol. i. 

263. Alfred Tennyson, ' Walking to the Mail.' 

264. Hollingworth, Chronicle of Manchester. 

268. William Shakspere, Macbeth, Act i. Sc. 1. 

269. ,, ,, Act i. Sc. v 
269. P. B. Shelley, * Autumn : A Dirge. ' 
269. „ 'A Vision of the Sea.' 

269. ,, 'The Sensitive Plant,' Pt. iii. 

270. John Clare, The Shepherds Calendar, ' November.' 

275. Samuel Bamford, Early Days, p. 153. 

276. Robert Herrick, ' The Hock Cart, or Harvest Home. 

285. William Wordsworth, ' Poems on the Naming of Places,' iv. 

285. ,, The Prelude, Book i. 

286. ,, The Excursion, Book iv. 

287. ,, The River Duddon, Prefatory Lines. 

287. ,, ,, „ 

288. ,, Description of the Country of the Lakes 
297. ,, The Excursion, Book i. 

299. ,, The Prelude, Book i. 

299. James Thomson, The Seasons, 'Winter.' 

304. Robert Tannahill, 'The Braes o' Gleniffer.' 

308. George Wither, 'Christmas Carroll.' 

309. Old Song, 1695. 



33^ An Index of Quotations. 



PAGE 

309. Robert Herrick, Noble Numbers, ' A Christmas Caroll.' 

309. Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Pointes, ' Christmas.' 

311. Sir Thomas Malory, La Mort d 1 Arthur, C. ill. 

311. William Shakspere, Hamlet, Act i. Sc. i. 

312. John Milton, ' On the Nativity.' 

312. George Herbert, The Church, ' Christmas.' 

312. Henry Vaughan, Silex Scintillans, ' Christ's Nativity.' 

313. Washington Irving, Quotation from 'Hue and Cry after Chri=t« 

mas.' 

313. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxviii. 

314. Henry Vaughan, Silex Scintillans, 'Departed Fiiends.' 

315. Old Carol, Traditional. 

315. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, xxix. 

318. Robert Herrick, ' Ceremonies for Christmasse.' 

319. Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam, cv. 

323. William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book. 

324. P. B. Shelley, « Ode to the West Wind. 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 



PAGE 

3. Yellow Jasmine, Jasminum nudiflorum. 

15. Hart's-tongue, Scolopendrium vulgare. This splendid fern will 
grow with great luxuriance set in a little rock-work on the 
floor of the greenhouse, and in the shade afforded by the 
shelves or stages on which the ordinary plants are placed. 

37. Daffodils, Narcissus Pseudo-narcissus. It is worth while to grow 
both the old, wild, single flower, and also the double variety. 
The single flower is much finer in form, but the double one is 
richer in colour, and blooms earlier. 

67. Whinberry: the common Whortleberry, Vaccinium Myrtillus. 
In this neighbourhood it is always called * Whinberry ' or 
' Wimberry. ' Among the working-people the fruit is much 
used for puddings, and in autumn the children go out upon the 
moors in troops to gather it. A Lancashire lad takes an 
especial pleasure in seeing his mouth purple-stained with the 
juice of this fruit. 

69. Lady's-mantle, Alchemilla vulgaris. There are few lovelier things 
than a leaf of Alchemilla with a drop of dew or rain lying like 
a diamond in the hollow of its cup. 

69. Wood-sorrel, Oxalis Acetosella. The Irish Shamrock. 

74. Solomon's-Seal, Polygonatum multiflorum. The bees are fond of 
this flower, and take great pains to force themselves into its 
narrow corolla. 

74. Star-of-Bethlehem, Ornithogalum umbellatum. 

77. Blue-bell, Hyacinthus non-scriptus. The English Blue-bell, not 
the Scotch Blue-bell, Campanula heterophylla. 



332 Miscellaneous Notes. 



PAGE 

77. Wind-flower, Wood -anemone, Aneinone nemorosa. 

77. Campion, Rose Lychnis, Lychnis sylvestris. This wild flower will 

grow well in the garden under the shade of trees. 
77. Satin-flower, Stellaria Holostea. 
77. Lady-smock, Cardamine pratensis. 

80. Dandelion, Leontodon Taraxacum. I believe it would he worth 
while to grow this flower in beds for the sake of its colour ; 
Lowell's line is quite true : — 

* To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime.' 

87. Oak and Ash. The old adage is variously given. The following 
is the version current in Lancashire :— 

' If oak be green before the ash, 
We shall only have a splash ; 
But if the ash before the oak, 
We shail surely have a soak.' 

96. Hedge-warbler, Accentor modularis, called also the Hedge-sparrow 

and in Lancashire the Dunnock. 
IOO. Meadow-pipit, Ant/ues pratensis, commonly called Tit-lark ; and 

in Lancashire, also, Peet-lark. 
104. Clematis, the Clematis Jackmanni. 

113. Forget-me-nots, Myosotis arvensis, and Myosotis palustris. 
113. Herb Robert, Geranium Robertianum. 
113. Woodruff, Asperula odorata. 
113. The three Stellarias. The Satin-flower, Stellaria holostea; the 

Stitchwort, Stellaria graminea ; and Chickweed, Stellaria 

media. 
113. Eyebright, Euphrasia officinalis. 
113. Bird's-foot, Ornithopus perpusillus 
113. Mountain Pansy, Viola lutea. 
115. The Swift, Cypselus apus. 
124. Orange Lily, Lilium bulbiferum 
124. Yellow Iris, Iris Pseud- Acorns. 

124. Campanula, Campanula persicifolia. 

125. Plumbago, Plumbago Capensis. Deserves to be much more com- 

mon than it is. Blooms with great profusion. No othei 
flower has exactly the same pure, lilac tint. 



Miscellaneous Notes. 333 



PAGE 

138. Yellow-wagtail, Motacilla flava. 

149. Horsetail, Equisetum sylvaticum. 

150. Chrysanthemum, Chrysanthemum leucanthemum, Great Ox-eye 

daisy. 
150. Loosestrife, Lysimachia nemorum. 
150. Yellow Vetchling, Lathyrus pratensis. 
150. Lesser Willow-herb, Epilobium montanum. This common wild 

flower, like many others, is worth cultivation in the garden 

for the sake of its graceful shape. 

150. Great Willow-herb, Epilobium hirsutum. 

151. Monkshood, Aconitum Napellus. 
151. Spiked Veronica, Veronica spicata. 

151. Meadow-sweet, Spircea ulmaria. Should be encouraged in the 

garden on account of its delicious scent. 
151. Evening Primrose, CEtwthera biennis. 

155. Campanula, the Harebell, Campanula heterophylla. 

156. Yarrow, Achillea millefolium. 

156. Convolvulus, the Bindweed, Convolvulus sepium. 

156. Pied-wagtail, Motacilla Garrellii, 

179. Bog-myrtle, Gale, also Sweet Gale, Myiica Gale. 

179. Cotton-grass, Eriophorum vaginatum. 

195. Snap-dragon, Antirrhinum majus. 

210. Scabious, Scabiosa succisa. 

2IO. Tormentil, Tormentilla officinalis. 

220. Crowfoot, Ranunctdus hirsutus. 

225. Periwinkle, I inca major. 

226. Syringa, Philadelphia coronarius. 

227. White Jasmine, Jasmiman officinale 

227. Habrothamnus, Habrotliamnus fascicularis. 

2.1Z). Dogwood, Cornus sanguinea. 

241. Shepherd' s-purse, Capsella Bursa-pastoris, 

242. Autumn-crocus, Crocus nudifiorus. 
292. Hard-fern, Blechnum boreale. 



INDEX. 



ABE 

A BERGLASLYN, 209 

■^ .^Eschylus, quoted, 1 71 

After-grass, 199 

Aikin (John) quoted, 229 

Ailsa, 187 

All Fools' Day, 52, 53 

All Hallows' Eve, 246 

Allingham (W. ) quoted, 242 

All Saints' Day, 247 

All Souls' Day, 248 

Am Binnein, 159, 179, 180, 188 

Ambleside, 284 

Anemone, 169, 260 

Aneurin, quoted, 50 

Anthony (St.) Turnip, 146 

Apple, blossom of, 71 ; resem- 
blance of scent to faint hyacinth, 
82 ; in spring, 151; trees in the 
garden, 177; 'Keswick,' 197; 
broken branches of trees, 203 ; 
diving for, 246 

Apple-pie, 150 

April, 48-71 

April daisy, 62 

April Fool, Charles Lamb on, 53 

Arctic winter, 303 

Ardrossan, 157 

Armboth, 291, 292, 295 

Arno's ' wild West wind, ' 202 

Arnold (Matthew), quoted, 135, 
155, 198, 221 

Arran, 153-159; visit of Scotch 
painters to, 1 79 ; reminiscences 
of, 184 



BEE 

Arthur's Christmas, 311 
Artists at North Meols, 45 
Ash, 86, 87, 121, 136, 137, 138, 

151, 200, 223, 229, 238, 239, 

241, 261, 332 
Ashen branch, 147 
Assheton, Sir Richard, 321 
Asters, 196 
Atmosphere, effects of the, on 

scenery, 181 
August, 153, 182 
Autumn, signs of, 135 ; draws on 

apace, 151 ; beginning of, 194; 

on the Welsh hills, 205 ; aspects 

in the garden and wood, 226 
Azalea, 71 



"DACON (Lord) on a garden, 

5 ; on lunar influence, 18 
Balder, 120 
Balm, 177 
Bamford (S.) quoted, 243, 261, 

275 
Bangor, 207 
'Bar-Gaist,' 263 
Basenthwaite Lake, 293 
Bays, 34, 309 
Beauty of winter, 282 
Beddgelert, 208, 210 
Bedding-plants and fragrant 

flowers contrasted, 151 
Beech, 71, 75, 76, 121, 124, 135, 

151, 200, 228, 230, 241, 301 



33^ 



Index. 



BEE 
Bees, 88, 90, 142, 177, 232, 257, 

3*7 

Begonias, 15 

Bells, Church Stretton, 1 14 ; 
ringing of, as protection against 
evil spirits, 248 ; at Christmas, 

315 

Ben-Ghaoith, 185 

Ben Ghnuis, 187 

Ben-Ghoil, 185 

Ben-Lomond, 187 

Ben-More, 187 

'Bess,' a 'boggart,' 278 

Bettws-Garmon, 208 

Bettws-y-coed, 219 

Bible, quoted, 51 

Bindweed, 146 

Birch, 82, 108, 121, 135, 102, 
178, 183, 241 

Birds, their boldness in winter, 8 ; 
not a hard winter for, 15 ; 
hardihood of, 51 ; on the moor- 
land, 67 ; their departure, 95 ; 
their nests deficient in size, 97 ; 
in song, 119; their silence, 
137; gossip about, 139; in 
autumn, 204; singing contrasted 
with scene of decay, 226 ; 
Agapemoneof, 231 ; at Moston, 
243 ; feeding the, 305, 322 

Bird's-foot, 113, 150, 155, 332 

Birken, 304 

Blackberry, 177, 260 

Blackbird, 74, 79, 82, 102, 103, 
127, 19S, 204, 223, 243, 305 

Blackley, the township of, 257 

Blake (W.) quoted, 72 

Blencathra, 293 

Bloomfield, quoted, 234 

Bluebell, 77, 331 

Boggart Hole Clough, 262 

Boggarts, 277 

Bog-myrtle, 179 

Bon h res, 120, 249 

Booth (Humphrey), 264 

Booth Hall, 264 



CEL 

Borrowdale, 162, 293, 295, 297 
Boscobel Oak, 98 
Botanist, Lancashire, 262 
Bowfell, 284 
Box, 88 

Boy memories, 87 
Boyhood in the Clough, 259 
Bracken, 179, 221, 292 
Braes of Gleniffer, 304 
Braggat, 49 
Bramble, 69, 155, 261 
Brawn, 309 
Brodick, 159, 185 
Bronte (C.) quoted, 68 
Brook-lime, 146 
Browning (Robert) quoted, 48 
Burdock, 146 

Burial-place, Wordsworth's de- 
scription of, 182 
Burns, quoted, 126, 245, 
Bate, Island of, 164, 182 
Buttercup, 146, 225 
Butterflies, 169 
Bwlch-y-Maen, 212 
Byron (Lord) quoted, 172 
Byron (Sir J.) 259 



(^AER CARADOC, 115 
^ Caistael-Abhael, 159 
Camellia, 9, 35, 316 
Camomile, 146 
Campanula, 124, 155, 181 227 

33 2 > 333 
Campion, 77, Sy, 241 
Candytuft, 93 
Caniire, 173, 187, 193 
Capel Curig, 205, 215 
Caractacus, 115 
Caradoc, 1 15 
Caradoc range, 1 12 
Carnarvon, 207 
Carol-singers, 314 
Cavendish and YYcdsey, 249 
Celandine, 31, 69, 77 
Celandine, lesser, 32, 53 



Index. 



337 



CHA 

Chapel -en-le-Frith, 68 

Chaucer quoted, 49, 61, 73 ; and 
the daisy, 62 ; and the haw- 
thorn, 84 

Cherry, 35, 71, 74, 82, 139 

Cherries, blackbirds waiting for, 
103 

Chester, 206 

Chestnut, 71, 12 1, 200, 230, 241, 
242 

Chetham family, 275 

Child in sickness and the snow- 
drop, 17 

Children, their enjoyment of snowy 
weather, 7 

1 Children of the Lord's Supper, ' 
119 

Christmas decorations, 33, 34, 
307 ; minstrels, 287; Eve, 306; 
carol, 309; tree, 310 ; Lay, 
314; ceremonies, 318 

Chrysanthemum, 150, 156, 225, 

271, 333 
Church Stretton, in 
Cioch-na-h'oi^he, 159, 165, 181 
Cior-Mhor, 166 

Clare, John, quoted, 136, 223, 270 
Clawdd-Coch, 212 
Clematis, 104, 332 
Clement (John), 147 
Cloudy weather and tree colouring, 

104 
C lough (A. H.) quoted, 183 
Clough at Moston, 257 
Clovelly, 173 
Clover, 149 

Coast, spring-time on the, 43 
Cockle-gatherer at Meols, 46 
Coleridge quoted, 12, 35, 205 
Coleridge (Justice) quoted, 149 
Coltsfoot, 149 
Colwyn, 206 
Coniston Old Man, 284 
Convolvulus, 156, 195, 333 
Conway Castle, luxuriant ferns at, 

15 ; the towers of, 221 



DEL 

Cookery recipes of the eighteenth 

century, 27 
Corn-flower, 108 

Cornwall camellias in March, 35, 36 
Corrie, 153, 159, 185 
Costume, Breton-like, at Meols, 

47 
Cottage gardens of the old sort, 46 
Cottages, old-fashioned, 21, 45 
Cotton gowns, 74 
Cotton-grass, 179, 333 
Cowper quoted, I, 14, 122, 227 
Cowslips, 32 
Cresses, 146 
Crib-Goch, 216 
Crib-y-Ddysgyl, 213, 21 6 
Crocus, 4, 20-24, 3 2 , 44, ^5 I > 

242, 333 
Croker, Crofton, the real author 

of ' The Bar-Gaist,' 263 
Crowfoot, 146, 220, 333 
Cuckoo, 115, 116, 243 
C umbrae, 182 

Currant, 35. 71, 90, 139, 226 
Currant-jelly recipe, quaint 28 
Cwm-Dyli, 216 
Cwm-glas-Llyn, 215 
Cwm-y-Clogwyn, 211 
Cwm-y-Llan, 215 
Cyclamen, 9 



T^AFFODILS, 36, 44, 74, IS*, 
331 

Daisy, 32, 46, 47, 54, 59-65, 84, 

85, 93, 156, 225, 241 
Dandelion, 80, 85, 142, 145, 155, 

169, 225, 241, 332 
Dante quoted, 12 
' Day, the longest,' 119 
Death, the Edge of, 211 
December, 272-314 
Decorations, Christmas, 33, 34, 

307 
' Deer-leaps,' 257 
Dell at Moston, 238 



333 



Index. 



: 7 8 



Ruskin's de- 
nest-build- 



DER 

Derbyshire, 66 

Deutzia, 9 

Devil's bit, 241 

Devil's punch-bowl, 1 80 

Digby (Kenelm) quoted, 32, 249 

Diving for apples, 246 

Docks, 150 

'Dogberry, Constable, of the 

Watch,' 229 
Dog-daisy, 59 
Dog harrying lambs, 
Dogwood, 229, 333 
Dove-cage, 238 
Dove, the wild, 177 ; 

scription of the, 5 

ing, 16 
Drayton, quoted, 40, 250 
Ducklings and hen, 143 
Ducks, 201 ; Muscovy, 298 
Duddon Sonnets, 286 
Dugald the shepherd, 176 
Dunmail Raise, 27, 286 
Diirer (Albert), 206, 31 1 

T^AGLES in Blakeleigh Park, 

■^ 257 

Easdale, 293 

Echoes of the spring, 221 

Edale, 66 

Egg-hot, 50 

Elder, 4, 87, 121, 151, 200, 223 

Elderberries, 223 

Eliot (G.) quoted, 181 

Elm, 52, 121, 20 [, 230, 240 

Emerson (R. W.) quoted, 153 

Erasmus, 145 

Evans (Sebastian) quoted, 21 

Evergreens, taking down, 33, 34 

Eye-bright, 113, 155, 332 



]7 AIRFIELD, 284 

-*- Fairies, or 'little men,' 

Fairy-rings, 277 

'Fallen Rocks,' 189 

fall of snow, 6 



278 



GAR 

Farms at Moston, 276 

February, 10-24 

Feeding the birds and the poor 

305-6 
Felix, the bird-master, 229 
Ferns, 15, 292, 333 
Ffridd-Uchaf, 209 
Finches, large congregation of, 

137 

Fir, 292 

Fire, midsummer, 1 20 ; its beauty, 
251 ; in winter, 306 

Fisher folk, quaint, 173 ; their 
theological patriarch, 173 

Fishing boats, 1 73 

Flint, the castle at, 206 

' Flitted,' 95 

Flodden Field, 321 

Flowers, influence of the summer 
heat on, 124; by the sea, 156 

Fog, Coleridge's description of a 
white, 12 ; a blind, 246 ; scarcity 
of, 266 ; varieties of, 267 

Foliage, varieties of colour, 121 

Folk lore, 261, 263, 277 

Forget-me-not, 113, 156, 332 

Foxglove, 4, 104, 113, 118, 124, 
128-133, 141, 155, 224, 323 

Frog, 95 

Frost, in February, 1 1 ; reminis- 
cences of frost-fair, 11 ; atypical 
frosty morning, 13; 'sharp' 
and ' killing ' in May, 73 ; and 
the hawthorn, 84 

Fuchsia, 162, 227, 271 

Fulham meadows, 145 

Fullarton family, 160 

Funeral emblem, rosemary as a, 

147 
Fungi, 236 

/^ARDEN, corners and alleys 

^- r of our, 5 ; the foxglove, 

128-133 5 the book for tne » 

134; the old-fashioned, 145- 

152 ; aspect of in autumn, 226 



Index. 



339 



GEE 

Geese, 223, 298 

Gentians, 151 

Geraniums, 71, 131, 162, 227, 

271, 316 
Girvan, 187 
Glas-Llyn, 215 
Glasswort as a pickle, 146 
Glen at Moston, 238 
Glen-Chalmadale, 191 
Glen Cloy, 160 
Gleniffer, Braes of, 304 
Glen-Rosa, 160, 165 
Glen-Sannox, 165, 182 
Glowworm, 317 
Glyder-Fach, 217 
Gnats, dance of, 19 ; wailful 

mourn of, 230 
Goatfell, 158, 159, 179, 184 
Goethe, quoted, 129 
' Golden chain, ' a local name for 

laburnums, 87 
Googe (Barnaby) quoted, 120 
Gooseander, 30 
Gooseberry, 19, 35, 71, 87, 139, 

226 
Goose-grass, a 'blood purifier,' 146 
Gorphysfa, 217 
Gorse, 29, 130, 221 
Grange-in-Cartmel, 283 
Grapes, 197, 271 
Grasmere, 30, 285 
Grasses, 150 

Gray (David) quoted, 213 
Gray (Thomas), his discovery of the 

Lake Country, 27 ; quoted, no 
Green (John), the shepherd, and 

his wife, 296 
Grelle, Thomas de, 273 
Guebres, 128 
Guelder-rose, 87 
Gulls, 156 
Gunpowder festival, 249 



TJ" ABROTHAMNUS, 227, 333 
**■ L Halgh (George), 259 



HON 

1 Halloween,' 247 

Hamilton ejectments, 190 

Hamilton family, 160 

Hard-fern, 292, 333 

Harebell, 155, 333 

Hart's-tongue, 15, 108, 331 

Harvest home, 276 

Hawker (R. S.) quoted, 92 

Hawks, 257 

Hawthorn, 15, 84, 90, 98, 1 2 1, 

I3I> 136 

Hay, moorland, 177 

Hayfield, 66 ; in the, 123 ; de- 
lightful associations in connec- 
tion with harvest, 125 

Hazel, 177, 178, 183, 261 

Heather, 179 

Hedge-cricket, 231 

Hedge-warbler, boldness of, 96 ; 
nest of, 96, 332 

Helvellyn, 26, 29, 286, 291 

Hemans (F.) quoted, 211 

Hen and ducklings, 143 

Henry I., storm on All Hallows' 
day in the eighteenth year of, 
249 

Herbert (George) quoted, 115 

Herb-robert, 113, 156, 221, 332 

Herb-twopence, cure for a hun- 
dred ills, 146 

Hereford violets, 42 

Heron, 30, 257 

Herrick quoted, 34, 41, 51, 75, 
107, 236, 276, 309, 318 

Hesketh, Dame Mary, 47 

High Street, 284 

Hills, view of the distant, 65 

' Hive, legend of the,' 91, 92 

Hock-cart, 276 

Holcolme, 274 

Hollingworth quoted, 264 

Holly, 34, 46, 88, 89, 113, 149, 
228, 261, 292, 308, 309 

Holy-Island, 164, 182 

Homer quoted, IQ9 

Honeysuckle, 11 



34Q 



Index. 



HON 

Honey, the sweetest in Wales 219 

Horse-chestnut, 52 

Horsetail, 149, 333 

Hough Hall, 258 

Hunt (Leigh) quoted, 72 

Hyacinth, 15, 82, 179, 238, 260 

Hydrangea, 162 

T DLENESS, rural, in May, 73 ; 

as a virtue, 154 
Imagination, truest test to apply 

to the, 205 
Indian summer, 232 
Instinct, its failures, 57 
Ireland perceptible from Goatfell, 

187 
Ins, 108, 124, 149, 332 
Irving, Washington, quoted, 313 
Ivy, 34, 88, 103, 121, 231, 309 



JACOBITE rebellion, the Young 
J Pretender's officer shot at 

Lightbowne, 274 
January, 1-9, 319-324 
Jasmine, yellow, 3, 4, 17, 235, 

304, 331 ; white, 227, ZS3 
Jessamine, 151, 195 
John (St.), 120; celebration of 

the eve of, 120 
John's (St.) Fern, 121, 261 
John the Mower, 320 
Jones (E. Burne), 42 
July, 123-152 
June, 99-122 
Juniper, 293 

TREATS (John) quoted, 187, 
V 230 

Keble (John) quoted, 172, 248 
Kent valley, 282 
Keswick, 27, 30, 291 
Kinder Scout, 66, 274 
Kingsley (Charles), 218 
Kyles, 187 



LLE 

T ABURNUM, 5, 87, 90, 98, 
■ L# 121, 201 

' Lady of the daffodils,' 42 
Lady of the old school described, 23 
Lady's mantle, 69, 82, 151, 331 
Lady-smock, 62, 77, 146, 332 
Lake Country in spring, 25 ; in 

winter, 280 
Lammastide, 177 
Lamb (Charles) 23 ; quoted, 50, 

53 

Lamb harried by dog, 178 

Lamlash, 159 

Lancashire, joviality at Whitsun- 
tide in, 106 ; working botanists 
of, 262 

Landscape, influence of memory 
on the beauties of tie, 206 

Langdale Pikes, 284 

Lapwing, 280 

Lark, 45, 138, 280, 305 

Laurel, 281, 287, 308, 309 

Lawes (Henry), 309 

Laying a spirit, 278 

'Legend of the Hive,' 91, 92 

Lesser Celandine, 32, 53 

Lichens, 292 

Life and its waste, 132 

Lightbowne Hall, 274 

' Light Spout ' waterfall, 113 

Lilac, colour of leaf, 121 

Lily, 81, 108, 124, 151, 332 

Lily Lane, 273 

Lime, 82, 113, 121, 200, 229, 
230, 241 

Limestone cave, 177 

Ling-bird, 100 

Linnoeus, his admiration of the 
gorse, 130 

Linnet, 256 

' Little men,' 278 

Little Summer of St. Luke, 232 

Llanbeblig, 207 

Llanberis, 213 

Llanrwst, 221 

Llechog, 210 



Index. 



34* 



LLI 

Lliwedd, 216 

Llyn Cwellyn, 210 

Llyniau-Mymbyr, 217 

Llyn LI yd aw, 216 

Llyn-y-Gader, 210 

Loch Fyne, 164, 173 

Loch Lomond, 164 

Loch Ranza, 173, 188, 192, 193 

Logan, quoted, 116, 167 

Loneliness of the moorland, 67 

' Longest day, the,' 119 

Longfellow quoted, 119, 140 

Long Mynd, 112 

Loosestrife, 150, 333 

Loughrigg, 284 

Lowell (J. R.) quoted, 81, 99 

Luke (St.) Little Summer of, 232 



A/TAGPIES, 242 
1V_L Maiden's breast. 159 
Malory (Sir Thomas) quoted, 311 
Manning (Miss) quoted, 145 
March, 25-47 ; last day of, bitter 

and biting, 49 
Marigold, 124, 271 
Marlowe quoted, 89 
Marl-pits in winter, 302 
Marten, 115 
Martinmas Day, 252 
Mason (George) at North Meols, 

45 

Mauchrie Bay, 173 

Mavis, 304 

May, 72-98 ; the flower of, 61 ; 
frost on the 1st of, 73 ; going 
a-Maying, 75 

Maypole, 120 

Meadow-lark, 100 

Meadow-pipit, 100, 332 

Meadow-sweet, 151, 156, 333 

Menai, 207 

Meols, North, 44 ; artistic quali- 
ties of, 45 ; the old hall at, 47 

Mnzereon, 24 

Middleton, 322 



MUL 

Mid-lent festival, 49 

Midsummer in Sweden, 119 

Mignonette, 56, 196 

Milk-thistle, 145 

Milton quoted, 11, 63, 84, 151, 
172, 263, 269, 312 

Miner's Bridge, 220 

Minstrels, Christmas, 287 

Mint, 177 

Misletoe, 34, 308 

Moel Hebog, 209 

Moel-Siabod, 218-220 

Monkshood, 1 51, 195, 333 

Moon, fading away of, 8 ; vision 
of new, with old in her arms, 
34, 35 ; autumnal look of, 139 ; 
in autumn, 199 ; the hunter's, 
232 ; in November, 266 ; in 
winter, 287 

Moorland hay, 177 

Moorland, on the, 65 

Moor-tit, 100 

More (Sir T.), 145 

Morecambe, 282 

Morrice-dancers, 275 

Morris (W.) quoted, 25, 84, 197 

Mort d' Arthur, 311 

Moss, 67, 149, 272, 292 

Moss-cheeper, 100 

Moston, cottage at, with Latin 
inscription, 22 ; its great oaks, 
98 ; writing from, 183 ; the 
glen and dell of, 239 ; Clough, 
257 ; its moss, 272 ; Christmas 
festivities at, 307 

Mother who kills her son, 278 

Mothering Sunday, 50 

Motherwort, 120 

Mountain, on the, 175 ; fatal 
accident on the, 180 ; scenery, 
realisation of the dreadful as- 
pect of, 211 ; in winter, 288 

Mountain-ash, 87, 121, 162, 180, 
183, 184, 201, 292 

Mouse, field, 126 

Mull, 173 



342 



Index. 



MYR 

Myrtle, 177, 179 
Musk, 71, 124, 225 



N 



ANT Gwynant, 216 
Nantlle, 210 

Narcissus, 93 

Nasturtiums, 162, 199, 227 

Nature, its gravity, 133 ; its con- 
tinuity, 154 

Newby Bridge, 283 

Newman (J. H.) quoted, 123 

Nest forsaken, 253 

New Brunswick Highland colony, 
190 

New year begun, 319 

Nightingales, 120 

November, 245-271 ; fog, 266 

Nuthurst, 275 

Nut-Nan, 277 



/^\AK, 86, 98, 108, 121, 200, 

KJ 229, 231, 237, 257, 332 

Ocean smiles, 172 

October, 213-244 

Odermann, 274 

'Old Bess,' 278 

Old man's pepper, 146 

Oliver's Clough, 265 

Orchis, purple, 146 

Osmunda, 285 

Ossian, 166 

Ousel-cock, 204 



pANSY, 113,332 

*■ Parsley, 46 

Parson and the rain, 94 

Passion flower, 125 

Peaches, 197 

Peacock, 6, 82 

Pea-hen, 144 

Pear-trees, 35, 52, 65, 73, 141, 

197, 233 
Pentecost, 106 



ROO 

Pen-y-Gwryd, 217 

Peony, 108, 151 

Periwinkle, 225, 333 

Pfingsten-tag, 106 

Phantom huntsmen, 277 

Pied wagtail, 156, 209, 333 

Pigeons, 73, 142, 202, 223 

Pimpernel, 146 

Pines, 221 

Pink, 118 

Pitmother, 277 

Plumbago, 125, 227, 332 

Politician of the Lake District, 296 

Polyanthus, 15, 46 

Pont-y-Gyfyng, 220 

Poppy, a promoter of sleep, 146 

Porlock, 131 

Pottage improved by herbs, 146 

Primrose, 6, 9, 36, 44, 46, 75, 

131, 151, 179, 333 
Professor on the love of trees, 105 
Providence and the birds, 102 



r^UEEN of the meadow, 151 

T3AIN, 94, 129, 140 

xv Rainbow, 170 

Ranunculus, 15, 74, 150 

Raspberry, 98 

Redbreast {see Robin Redbreast) 

Returning winter, 4 

Rhododendron, 89, 90, 204 

Rhyl, 206 

Richard I. taken prisoner, 249 

Rime, 301 

Robin Good fellow, 263 

R.bin Redbreast, 8, 13, 82 ; 
singing in the thunder, S5 ; my 
favourite, 204 ; the whistle oi 
the, 230 ; courts my acquaint- 
ance, 243 ; very numerous, 256 ; 
hard time for, 305 

Roby (John), 263 

Rochdale, 257 

Rookery, 258 



Index, 



43 



ROO 

Rooks, 44, 305 

Roses, 3, 13, 69, 71 ; 113, 115,. 
125, 151, 156, 162, 177, 226, 
228, 239, 260, 292, 305 

Rosemary, 34, 147, 309 

Rossetti (Gabriel), 42 

Rosthwaite, 294 

Rowan, 183 

Rushbearing, 275 

Ruskin (John) quoted, 5, 131 

Russel (Sir John), 249 

Rydal Mere, 285 

Rydal Mount, 148 

Rydal, the home of Wordsworth, 
31 ; Mere, 32, 285 ; Mount, 148 



CADDLEWORTH, 65 

° Sage, 46 

Saint Anthony Turnip, 146 

Saint Michael, 182 

Salep, 146 

Salford, 264 

Sandford family, 275 

Sannox, 164, 189, 190 

Satin-flower, 77, 332 

Saxifrages, 1 81 

Scabious, 210, 241, 333 

Scammony, 146 

Scilla-amcena, 15 

Scotch, not given to gardening, 162 

Scott (Sir W.) quoted, 30, 161, 

185, 192, 252 
Sea, by the, 167 
September, 183-212 
Shackerley Green, 275 
Shakspere quoted, 41, 48, 62, 75, 

204, 217, 227, 243, 254, 268, 

269, 311 
Shakspere's Dogberry, 229 
Shamrock, 69, 331 
Shelley quoted, 7, 64, 109, 201- 

203, 251, 269, 272, 324 
Shepherd's book, 295 
Shepherd of the Lake District, 294 
Shepherd's purse, 47, 241, 333 



SPR 

Shields (Frederick J. ), 42 . 

Shire-oaks, 69 

Shrovetide, 32 

Siabod, Moel, 218 

Siberian crab, 75, 198, 223, 247 

Sidney (Sir P.) quoted, 18 

Simanellus cake, 49 

Simblin cake, 49 

Simnel cake, 49 

Skating, 283, 299, 301, 316, 323 

Skiddaw, 293 

Skylark, 109 

Sliding, 296 

Smith (Alexander) quoted, 251 

Smoking Oronooko, 50 

Snapdragon, 195, 333 

Snipe, 274 

Snow, fall of, 6 ; an apology for 
a snow-man, 7; a child's regret 
at the collapse of, 17; in April, 
52 ; a severe storm, 252; snow- 
muffled winds, 288 ; an intoxi- 
cant, 301 ; forts, 301 

Snowdon, 186, 207, 210 

Snowdon Ranger, 208 

Snowdrops, 4, 16-19, 28, 31, 32, 

Solar worship, 128 

Solomon's seal, 74, 331 

Sorrel, 150, 220 

Soul-cakes, 248 

Souls, departed, on Midsummer 
Eve, 120 

South ey quoted, 89 

Sparrow, 16, 80, 228, 237, 256, 305 

Speedwell, 21 

Spence (Sir Patrick) quoted, 35 

Spenser quoted, 10, 123, 232 

Spiders' webs, 235 

Spinning, 277 

Spring days in January, 2 ; time 
in the Lake Countiy, 25 ; on the 
coast, 43; weather, 51; 'the 
winter is gone,' 70 ; ' the living 
green of,' 134; echoes of, 221- 
226 ; song of, 230 



344 



Index. 



STA 

Stag's-horn moss, 293 

Starling, 36, 52, 57 

Star-of-Bethlehem, 74, 331 

Stellaria, 113, 260, 332 

Still days, 93 

Stitchwort, 332 

Stocks, 271 

Storms on All Hallows, 249 

Strawberries, 19, 31, 69, 87, 225 

Suidhe-Fergus, 165 

Summer in the Midlands, 1 10 ; 

tropical, 123 ; woods, 133 ; hot 

again, 139 
Sunday in the Lake Country, 31 ; 

at Church Stretton, 114 
Sunrise, 7, 1 71 
Sunset, 109, 117, 127, 142; on 

the mountains, 181, 193 
Sunshine not essential to beauty, 

93 ; in the mountains, 217 
Surrey dogwood, 229 
Swallows, 138, 530 
Sweden, midsummer in, 119 
Sweet-Gale, 179, 333 
Sweet-william, 124 
Swift, 115, 332 
Swinburne quoted, 165 
Swithin's (St.) day, 139 
Sword-grass, 108 
Sycamore, 122, 135, 151, 200, 241 
Syringa, 226, 271, 333 



^"TALIESIN quoted, 50 
■*- Tannahill quoted, 304 

Tan-y-Bwlch Hotel, 217 

Tea and herrings, 191 

Tegner, Bishop, quoted, 119 

Temperature, 51, 123, 140, 198, 
222, 303 

Tennyson (Alfred) quoted, 12, 
17, 20, 31, 44, 46, 70, 87, 98, 
104, no, 125, 132, 137, 141, 
148, 216, 241, 263, 313, 319 

Tennyson (Frederick) quoted, 86 

Tentacula, 169 



WAG 



Thirlmere, 25, 286, 287, 291, 295 

Thistles, 150, 199 

Thomson (James) quoted, 43, 299 



Thorn, 



>b> I 



76, 200, 228 



Throstle, 23, 57, 64, 71, 85, 119, 
137, 138, 141, 204, 243 

' Throstle Glen,' 243 

Throstle's nest, history of, 78 

Thrush {see Throstle) 

Thunder, 77, 85, 232, 254 

Thyme, 46, 146, 232 

Tit -lark, 100 

Titling, 100 

' Toilers of the Sea,' 46 

Toothache, a cure for, 146 

Tormentil, 210, 333 

Traeth-Mawr, 209 

Trees, love of trees and the de- 
scent of man, 105 ; by the sen, 
162 ; in autumn, 196 

Trefoil, 15 

Tropical summer, 123 

Tudor, Henry and Mary, 114 

Tulips, 74 

Turner (J. W. M.), his 'Frosty 
Morning,' 13 

Tusser, quoted, 56, 309 

Twilight, 119 

Tyn-y-coed, 219 



TJLLS WATER, 39 



yALE of St. John, 25, 30 
* Vaughan (H.) quoted, 
102, 312, 314 
Veronica, 151, 195, 227, 333 
Vervain, 120, 146 
Vetch, 156 
Vetchling, 150, 333 
Violet, 21, 42 
Vortigern, 207 



95. 



W 



AENFAWR, 207 

Waggons, country, 258 



Index. 



145 



WAG 

Wagtail, 138, 156, 209, 333 

Walker (Fred.) at North Meols, 45 

Walton (I.), 89 

Wansfell, 284 

Warbler, 80 

Wassail, 318 

Watendlath, 291, 293, 295, 296 

Water arrow-head, 146 

Water, rare sweet, recipe for, 28 

Water sprites, 277 

Watts (Isaac) quoted, 134 

Waves, sound of, 169 ; laughter of, 

171 
Weather-Prophet, Dugald the, 

176 
Weaving, 277 
Wekeen, 100 

Welsh hills in autumn, 205 
Westmoreland, the mountains of, 

280 
Whaite (Clarence), 218 
Whinberry, 67, 331 
White fog, 10 
White (Gilbert), 83 
White-thorn, 83 
White Water, 16 1, 179 
Whiting Bay, 159 
Whitsuntide, 106 
Whortleberry, 67, 331 
Whytemosse, 273 
Wild succory, 146 
Willow, 46, 47, 121, 136, 151, 

162, 200, 242 
Willow herb, 150, 156, 225, 333 
Wind, whistle of the North,' 8 ; 

varying qualities of the four, 

56 ; rending the clouds, 77 ; 

the wild West, 200 



Y-WY 

Wind-flower, 77, 332 

Winter, returning, 4 ; dumbness 
of, 8 ; gone, 70 ; fire cessation 
of, 117; first week of, 245 ; in 
the Lake Country, 280 ; beauty 
of, 282 ; an old-fashioned, 298 

Winter-house, 299 

Witches, 278 

Wither (G.) quoted, 308 

Wizards, 278 

Wolsey (Cardinal), 249 

Wool, 277 

Wordsworth (Dorothy) quoted, 39 

Wordsworth (W.) quoted, 1, 2, 
18, 38, 54, 56, 64, 69, 76, 80, 
116, 119, 155, 158, 167, 182, 
191, 219, 227, 259, 285, 286, 
287, 288, 297, 299, 323 ; his 
house at Rydal, 32 ; garden at 
Rydal, 148 ; his delight in the 
beauties of nature, 149 

Worm, 103 

Wood in summer, 133 ; in 
autumn, 226 

Woodbine, 156 

Woodruff, 113, 146, 156 

Wood-sorrel, 31, 69, 77, 146, 331 

Wren, 30, 204, 243 



\7"ARRELL, quoted, 100 
* Yarrow, 156, 333 
Year ended, 314 
Yellow wagtail, 138, 333 
Yew tree, 88 
Yr Eifl, 207 
Yuletide, 120 
Y-Wyddfa, 216 



AA 



